Design and nanomanufacturing have collided inside of a Northwestern University laboratory.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has used mathematics and machine learning to design an optimal material for light management in solar cells, then fabricated the nanostructured surfaces simultaneously with a new nanomanufacturing technique.
Design and nanomanufacturing have collided inside of a Northwestern University laboratory.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has used mathematics and machine learning to design an optimal material for light management in solar cells, then fabricated the nanostructured surfaces simultaneously with a new nanomanufacturing technique.
“We have bridged the gap between design and nanomanufacturing,” said Wei Chen, the Wilson-Cook Professor in Engineering Design and professor of mechanical engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, who led the study’s design component. “Instead of designing a structure element by element, we are now designing and optimizing it with a simple mathematic function and fabricating it at the same time.”
The fast, highly scalable, streamlined method could replace cumbersome trial-and-error nanomanufacturing and design methods, which often take vast resources to complete.
“The concurrent design and processing of nanostructures paves the way to avoid trial-and-error manufacturing, increasing the cost effectiveness to prototype nanophotonic devices,” said Teri Odom, Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and leader of the study’s nanofabrication component.
Read more at Northwestern University
Image Credit via Northwestern University
