Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 2 No. 4 Winter 2017 | Page 14

Assistant Professor
Rayne Zheng
Nano Printing
Printing at the nano scale has hurdles to overcome before becoming reality
and Professor Rayne Zheng is helping lay the theoretical foundations for
A nanometer
is just shy of
the atomic
level.
A hydrogen
atom, for
example, is
about 0.1
nanometers.
additive manufacturing at levels bordering on the atomic
When working with engineers and physicists
it’s important to understand the length-scale of
the features they work with and their interaction
with all physical inputs --- from electromagnetic
waves, optics and acoustic waves, to mass
transport and energy storage.
For most people a millimeter is a good place to
start. It’s a small unit of measure, but one that
can easily be associated to the world around us -
a dime is nearly 18 millimeters across. Break the
millimeter into a thousand pieces and you’re left
MOMENTUM
WINTER'17

with a micrometer, a unit of measure you can’t
see – this is the scale used to measure bacteria.
Break the micrometer down into a thousand
pieces and you’re left with a nano-meter, a unit
of measure that is used to measure individual
strands of DNA which have a diameter of around
2.5 nanometers.
These nanometer features are not new to
scientists. Nanowires and thin films, have been
shown to have exceptional properties. Although
these nano-properties are very desirable
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