(174b) High-Throughput Synthesis Via Aerosol-Based Additive Manufacturing

The discovery and optimization of novel materials and their composition/microstructure are crucial for advancing technologies in sectors such as clean energy and environmental sustainability. However, discovering and optimizing materials has traditionally been a slow and inefficient process. Current combinatorial thin-film deposition techniques can produce numerous material libraries but have limited material choices and cannot fully capitalize on recent advancements in nanomaterials synthesis. In this study, we introduce an aerosol-based combinatorial printing (CP) technique that enables the fabrication of materials featuring compositional gradients and microscale pattern resolutions. This method allows real-time mixing ratio adjustments for various material options, a capability not found in traditional multi-material patterning using liquid or solid phase feedstocks. Additionally, by modifying the ink chemistry and deposition kinetics, we showcase a diverse set of printing strategies and high-throughput applications in combinatorial doping, functional grading, and chemical reactions. This enables not only the exploration of doped ternary chalcogenides but also the production of materials with microscale compositional gradation and gradient mechanical properties. As a demonstration, CP is employed to study the impact of doping levels on thermoelectric materials, quickly identifying the ideal doping level that results in a printed n-type material with a high room-temperature power factor. This approach, which merges the design flexibility of additive manufacturing with bottom-up control over feedstock material compositions, holds the potential to serve as an experimental design platform for accelerating the high-throughput synthesis and screening of various material systems.