A nanolattice is a synthetic porous material consisting of nanometer-size members patterned into an ordered lattice structure, like a
space frame
In architecture and structural engineering, a space frame or space structure ( 3D truss) is a rigid, lightweight, truss-like structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with ...
. The nanolattice is a newly emerged material class that has been rapidly developed over the last decade. Nanolattices redefine the limits of the material property space. Despite being composed of 50-99% of air, nanolattices are very mechanically robust because they take advantage of size-dependent properties that we generally see in nanoparticles, nanowires, and thin films. The most typical mechanical properties of nanolattices include ultrahigh strength, damage tolerance, and high stiffness. Thus, nanolattices have a wide range of applications.
Driven by the evolution of
3D printing
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
techniques, nanolattices aiming to exploit beneficial material size effects through miniaturized lattice designs were first developed in the mid-2010s,.
[ Nanolattices are the smallest man-made lattice ]truss
A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure.
In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...
structures[ and a class of ]metamaterials
A metamaterial (from the Ancient Greek, Greek word Meta, μετά ''meta'', meaning "beyond" or "after", and the Latin word ''materia'', meaning "matter" or "material") is any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally ...
that derive their properties from both their geometry (general metamaterial definition) and the small size of their elements.[ Therefore, they can possess effective properties not found in nature, and that may not be achieved with larger-scale lattices of the same geometry.
]
Synthesis
To produce nanolattice materials, polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
templates are manufactured by high-resolution 3D printing processes, such as multiphoton lithography
Multiphoton lithography (also known as direct laser lithography or direct laser writing) of polymer templates has been known for years by the photonic crystal community. Similar to standard photolithography techniques, structuring is accomplished ...
, self-assembly
Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...
, self-propagating photopolymer waveguides, and direct laser writing techniques. Those methods can synthesize the structure with a unit cell size down to the order of 50 nanometers. Genetic engineering also has the potential in synthesizing nanolattice. Ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
, metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
or composite material
A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
nanolattices are formed by post-treatment of the polymer templates with techniques including pyrolysis
The pyrolysis (or devolatilization) process is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures, often in an inert atmosphere. It involves a change of chemical composition. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements ''py ...
, atomic layer deposition
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a thin-film deposition technique based on the sequential use of a gas-phase chemical process; it is a subclass of chemical vapour deposition. The majority of ALD reactions use two chemicals called precursors (also ...
, electroplating
Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct electric current. The part to be ...
and electroless plating
Electroless plating, also known as chemical plating or autocatalytic plating, is a class of industrial chemical processes that create metal coatings on various materials by autocatalytic chemical reduction of metal cations in a liquid bath. This c ...
.[ Pyrolysis, which additionally shrinks the lattices by up to 90%, creates the smallest-size structures, whereby the polymeric template material transforms into carbon,][ or other ceramics][ and metals,][ through thermal decomposition in inert atmosphere or vacuum.
]
Properties
At the nanoscale, size effects and different dimensional constraints, like grain boundaries, dislocations, and distribution of voids, can tremendously change the properties of a material. Nanolattices possess unparalleled mechanical properties. Nanolattices are the strongest existing cellular materials despite being extremely light-weight. Though consisting of 50%-99% air, nanolattice can be as strong as steel.[ Its effective strength can reach up to 1 GPa. On the order of 50nm, the extremely small volume of their individual members, such as walls, nodes, and trusses, thereby statistically nearly eliminates the material flaw population and the base material of nanolattices can reach mechanical strengths on the order of the theoretical strength of an ideal, perfect crystal. While such effects are typically limited to individual, geometrically primitive structures like ]nanowires
A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre (10−9 metres). More generally, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less ...
, the specific architecture allows nanolattices to exploit them in complex, three-dimensional structures of notably larger overall size. Nanolattices can be designed highly deformable and recoverable,[ even with ceramic base materials. Nanolattices are able to undergo 80% compressive strain without catastrophic failure and then still recover to 100% original shape. Nanolattices can possess ]mechanical metamaterial Mechanical metamaterials are artificial structures with mechanical properties defined by their structure rather than their composition. They can be seen as a counterpart to the rather well-known family of optical metamaterials. They are often also t ...
properties like auxetic (negative Poisson's ratio) or meta-fluidic behavior (large Bulk modulus).[ Nanolattices can combine mechanical resilience and ultra-low ]thermal conductivity
The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by k, \lambda, or \kappa.
Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low thermal conductivity than in materials of high thermal ...
and can have electromagnetic metamaterial characteristics like optical cloaking.[ However, one of the challenges in nanolattices research is figure how to retain the robust properties while scaling up. It is inherently difficult to keep nanoscale size effects in bulk structure. The straightforward workaround to overcome this challenge is to combine bulk processes with thin film deposition techniques to retain the frame space hollow structure.
]
Application
The first market for nanolattices may be small-scale, small-lot components for biomedical, electrochemical, microfluidic, and aerospace applications, which require highly customizable and extreme combinations of properties. In the aerospace industry, the application of nanolattice could make the aircraft lighter and save lots of energy.
See also
* Metamaterials
A metamaterial (from the Ancient Greek, Greek word Meta, μετά ''meta'', meaning "beyond" or "after", and the Latin word ''materia'', meaning "matter" or "material") is any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally ...
* Nanomaterials
*
Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale).
Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to nan ...
* Microlattice
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[ "Nanolattice engineering"]
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sciencedaily.com. 11 September 2014.
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Nanomaterials
Metamaterials
Foams