US-Ireland R&D Partnership: Scalable Low Temperature Ultrafast Laser Materials Manufacturing (STELLAR)

Glass is an important material for numerous applications due to its unique properties: it is an excellent electrical insulator, optically transparent, chemically inert, and has a smooth surface that resists contamination. Innovations in glass materials and manufacturing have consistently transformed technologies, from thin, flexible glass revolutionizing interactive displays to optical fibers reshaping telecommunications.

Recent advances in printable glass promise to expand its utility in microfluidics, sensors, and the creation of hollow molds for shaping other materials. Printable glass manufacturing, a bottom-up process, overcomes the limitations of traditional top-down fabrication, potentially offering unprecedented precision and efficiency. This research project addresses the challenge of developing scalable manufacturing processes for printable glass, integrating laser processing to enable transformative applications, including sensors, nanosatellite optics, and microstructural engineering.

The collaboration brings together leading researchers from the United States, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, fostering international partnerships and providing participating student researchers with exceptional collaborative research experiences.

This work will develop a scalable, laser-driven manufacturing process for printable glass, leveraging the interplay of additive and subtractive manufacturing technologies. The approach combines advanced beam shaping and femtosecond lasers. This research is grounded on multi-physics based computational modeling and design, which will enable a fundamental understanding of the complex dynamics in the process.

The process will be applied to fabricate a planar resonant sensor, potentially extending into other applications such as micromechanical sensors and nanoscale optics. Compared to traditional methods, the researched approach promises up to eighty percent reduction in energy consumption for glass manufacturing. Furthermore, potential contributions of this project include advancements in scalable glass manufacturing, integration of glass structures with next-generation devices, and transformative impacts on mechanical sensing and advanced optics fabrication.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.