SBIR Phase II: Development and Analysis of Functional NanoInks for Printed Neuromorphic Electronics and Smart Sensors

The broader impacts of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project stem from a compact, AI-driven manufacturing platform that unifies materials testing, quality assurance, defect correction, and device fabrication in a single hybrid workflow. By sharply reducing capital costs and technical complexity, the system opens micron-scale printed-electronics production to small and large manufacturers, startups and academic labs, thereby accelerating U.S. innovation in both analog and digital electronics, artificial intelligence, and advanced sensing technologies. Its turnkey, multilayer capability can fabricate neuromorphic devices, metasurfaces, and visible-to-infrared sensor matrices in hours instead of days, cutting material waste and easing reliance on offshore foundries. Because the process is largely additive and avoids hazardous etchants and photoresists, it also lowers toxic emissions and environmental footprints compared with conventional fabrication techniques. Broad deployment will strengthen domestic supply chains, create high-skill manufacturing jobs, and give researchers and workforce-training programs versatile tools to tackle urgent challenges in healthcare, defense and energy harvesting, reinforcing U.S. leadership in next-generation electronics.

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will scale a proprietary, multifunctional printing platform that deposits conductive, sensing, and non-volatile-memory nanocomposite inks onto rigid and flexible substrates with sub-micron features. Conventional photolithography is too costly, slow, and inflexible to meet the growing demand for high-resolution IoT sensors, wearable electronics, and AI hardware. By contrast, the proposed hybrid process closes this gap by achieving three objectives: (i) harden the platform’s materials set and process controls for manufacturability, (ii) integrate large-area thin film coating, multi-nozzle high-resolution printing, and laser micromachining into an inline, fully autonomous robotic cell, and (iii) embed AI-guided auto-alignment with real-time defect detection and correction to achieve functional yields above 90%. The work plan pairs drop-on-demand ink chemistry with closed-loop AI algorithms and precision motion control, with rigorous reliability testing under industrial use cases. Key expected milestones include fabricating memristive crossbar tiles for neuromorphic computing and infrared sensing arrays, each at five times the throughput of current additive or subtractive techniques. Anticipated results include a production-ready tool chain that prints micron-scale features and reduces capital costs by 80% relative to conventional fabrication, establishing a fully additive, rapid-turnaround route from design to market-ready microelectronic devices.

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.

Award Number: 2528156
Principal Investigator: Nikolay Frick
Funds Obligated: $1,241,749
State: NC