| Abstract Scope |
Additive manufacturing (AM) can revolutionize the design and production of components for medical devices, lightweight structures, microelectronic packaging, and more. However, at present AM is largely limited to producing objects using traditional material feedstocks that involve one primary physical or chemical transformation, such as melting, bonding, curing, or sintering. The capability to integrate self-assembly into AM would enable hierarchical materials design across length scales, combining controlled chemical and nanoscale interactions with macroscopic form. I will present recent work toward this broad objective through two topics: (1) direct-write manipulation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to create flexible, printed conductors and field emitters; (2) in situ interfacial polymerization within nanomaterial assemblies, creating monolithic bulk nanocomposites. |