Processing Nanostructured Materials: Powders, Patterns, & Pores

Speaker: Prof. Sundar V. Atre
School of Mechanical, Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering, Oregon State University

The focus of the seminar is in the area of synthesis, processing, properties and applications of nanostructured materials. The three categories of nanostructured materials that form the core of our research group are based on particles, patterned arrays, and porous films. In the area of particles, sintered structures of ceramic and metal nanoparticles and nanocomposites of metal and polymer nanoparticles have been studied extensively by our group. Patterned arrays of metallic structures embedded in rigid or flexible dielectric matrix constitute a recent class of systems that have been investigated by our group. The porous films that have been developed by our group include sintered structures, anodized membranes with chemically modified surfaces, and permeable polymer nanocomposites. The fabrication processes of core interest for manipulating the above nanomaterials include powder injection molding, laser machining, e-beam lithography, anodization, sintering and surface modification. The material attributes that have been examined by our group include mechanical, electrical, thermal, biological and optical properties. The combinations of materials and processes have been extended to a broad range of application areas including electronic and LED packaging, chemical and biological sensors, energy, armor, biomaterials, metamaterials and microsystems. The outlook of our research group is to develop an understanding of the structure- processing-property inter-relationships in these systems to enable the development of new applications.

Bio: Sundar V. Atre received his B.Tech. (Chemical Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Penn State University. He was the Director of Polymer Chemistry at the Center for Innovative Sintered Products prior to joining the faculty at Oregon State University and the Oregon Nanoscience & Microtechnologies Institute. He has been associated with 6 start-up companies in advanced materials and manufacturing, the most recent one, Home Dialysis Plus has received $50 million in private investment. His research focuses on powder-polymer processing with applications to microscale and nanoscale systems. He has published over 120 technical papers related to advanced materials and precision manufacturing; and has served as PI or co-PI on over $5M in externally sponsored research grants and contracts with numerous government agencies and private corporations.