Stamping

Abstract: A method of patterning a material surface is provided in which an elastomeric stamp having a stamping surface is coated with a self-assembled monolayer forming species having a functional group selected to bind to a particular material, and the stamping surface is placed against a surface of material and is removed to leave a self-assembled monolayer of the species according to the stamping surface pattern of the stamp. Additional stamping steps may be subsequently effected to produce any of a variety of SAM patterns on the surface. Additionally, portions of the material surface that are not coated with a stamped SAM pattern may be filled in with another SAM-forming species. Alternately, portions that are not covered by a SAM layer may be etched or plated. Additionally, an optical switch and other optical devices and elements are provided, comprising articles similar to the inventive stamp.

Abstract: The fast growth of portable smart electronics and internet of things have greatly stimulated the demand for miniaturized energy storage devices. Micro-supercapacitors (MSCs), which can provide high power density and a long lifetime, are ideal stand-alone power sources for smart microelectronics. However, relatively few MSCs exhibit both high areal and volumetric capacitance. Here rapid production of flexible MSCs is demonstrated through a scalable, low-cost stamping strategy. Combining 3D-printed stamps with arbitrary shapes and 2D titanium carbide or carbonitride inks (Ti3C2Tx and Ti3CNTx, respectively, known as MXenes), flexible all-MXene MSCs with controlled architectures are produced. The interdigitated Ti3C2Tx MSC exhibits high areal capacitance: 61 mF cm−2 at 25 μA cm−2 and 50 mF cm−2 as the current density increases by 32 fold. The Ti3C2Tx MSCs also showcase capacitive charge storage properties, good cycling lifetime, high energy and power densities, etc. The production of such high-performance Ti3C2Tx MSCs can be easily scaled up by designing pad or cylindrical stamps, followed by a cold rolling process. Collectively, the rapid, efficient production of flexible allMXene MSCs with state-of-the-art performance opens new exciting opportunities for future applications in wearable and portable electronics.

Abstract: Automotive industry faces new challenges every day, new design trends and technological deployments from research push companies to develop new models and facelifts in short term, requiring new tools or tool reshaping. Concerning the current world economic scenario, decreasing time for tooling up becomes as important as decreasing time-to-market. Such scenario opens up the horizons for new manufacturing approaches like additive manufacturing, in this case, applied for tooling up a stamping process on the automotive industry for the production of body panels. This approach enables the manufacturing of stamping inserts using similar high performance alloy steel as in conventional tooling, therefore, without losing tool mechanical properties. The stamping tools produced were tested by an automotive company in order to determine tool behaviour under real operating conditions, considering the high level demands of the stamping process. The results obtained enabled to conclude that metal additive manufacturing provided tools for the stamping process with excellent performance with a significant decrease on time-to-tooling.