PROFACTORIANER

Master thesis – Team Functional Surfaces and Nanostructures

An increasing demand for alternative processes is present in the PCB manufacturing industry. Considering photolithography as main alternative solution, inkjet printing PCBs will be: innovative, cheaper, simpler, greener, stronger and closer to the market. Compared with photolithography, inkjet printing PCBs has a clear economic advantage with the potential to cut PCB prices of more than 50%. Moreover, PCB manufacturing by inkjet printing will open new possibilities for this well-established market.
Main scope of inkjetPCB project is to develop fully inkjet printed multi-layer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) including embedded passive components as a commercially viable process. As outcome of this collaborative innovation project, the consortium partners plan to deliver to their customers a Complete Solution for the digital additive manufacturing of PCBs including materials, equipment and process guidelines.

PROFACTOR is an applied research center located in Steyr. We conduct research in the field of industrial assistive systems and additive micro/nano manufacturing. Our team consists of around 70 employees from 15 different academic fields. We work across disciplines to find solutions for the manufacturing industry and set standards in robotics, machine vision, simulation, 3D printing, functional surfaces and nanostructures.

The goals of this thesis are

• to develop processes, including printing, pre-treatments and post-processing of dielectric, conductive and resistive materials
• to investigate the interface issues and compatibility among the different materials
• to further develop the lab equipment and its sotware towards full 3D printing compatibility
• to design and manufacture PCBs and electronic devices for demonstration

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Master thesis – Team Functional Surfaces and Nanostructures

Improving the life quality of Europe’s increasingly elderly population is one of the most pressing challenges our society faces today. The need to treat age-related degenerative changes in e.g. articular joints or dental defects will boost the market opportunities for tissue regeneration products like implants. 3D printing has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare system by providing highly sophisticated, tissue engineered implants personalized to the patient. State of the art 3D printing technologies can provide biocompatible implants with the right macroscopic shape to fit a patient-specific tissue defect. However, for a real functionality, there is a need for new biomaterials, technologies and processes that additionally allow the fabrication of an inner multi-material microstructure that induces tissue-specific regeneration. Among the different available technologies for tissue engineering applications, 3D multi-material inkjet printing has an immense potential to address the complexity required for implant inner microstructure fabrication. However, the advance of this technology is mainly hindered by the lack of inks that exhibit the required properties to be used in a multi-material process.

PROFACTOR is an applied research center located in Steyr. We conduct research in the field of industrial assistive systems and additive micro/nano manufacturing. Our team consists of around 70 employees from 15 different academic fields. We work across disciplines to find solutions for the manufacturing industry and set standards in robotics, machine vision, simulation, 3D printing, functional surfaces and nanostructures.

The goals of this thesis are

• to develop new inkjet ink formulations based on biocompatible and biodegradable materials for 3D multi-material inkjet printing
• to optimize the printing and curing processes of those materials
• to investigate the interface issues and compatibility among the different materials to make possible the multi-material process
• to perform 3D multi-material inkjet printing of biocompatibility and biodegradable materials

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Master thesis

Nanoimprint Lithography is a method to replicate nanostructures on large area. This is done by pressing a nanostructured stamp into a soft (UV-curable) polymer on a substrate. While the stamp is in contact with the polymer, the material is cured by e.g. UV-irradiation and then the stamp is removed, resulting in a nanostructured hard polymer on the substrate. Such an imprint can later be used as mask for metal deposition and thus define geometry of particles. Afterwards the particles can be removed from the substrate in a lift-off step and used further for biofunctionalization. At PROFACTOR we are developing a CNC-based UV-nanoimprint tool to fabricate these kinds of nanostructures.

PROFACTOR is a private, applied research company located in Steyr. We conduct research in the field of industrial assistive systems and additive micro/nano manufacturing. Our team consists of around 70 employees from 15 different academic fields. We work across disciplines to find solutions for the manufacturing industry and set standards in robotics, machine vision, simulation, 3D printing, functional surfaces and nanostructures.

The goals of this thesis are

• to investigate basic processes for the replication of nanoscale features for particle fabrication.
• to investigate different materials, for imprinting and their liftoff suitability
• to further develop an CNC-based imprint tool for fast and relyable imprinting.

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“Location Wien or Steyr”

We are looking forward to your application – preferably online.

PROFACTOR GMBH

Im Stadtgut A2 | 4407 Steyr-Gleink
Tel.: +43 (0)7252 885-0 | Fax: +43 (0)7252 885-101