Investigating Implementation of Nanoenergetics for Small-Scale on-Chip Applications

The high energy density of nanoenergetic materials makes for an intriguing material for small-scale on-chip applications.  Such applications utilize gas, heat, and/or light production for purposes such as micro-propulsion, delay timers, fuzing, and more.  A number of different energetic materials have been implemented “on-chip” including intermetallic foils, porous silicon, or nanothermites, however there is much to be done in this field and several other techniques that may be of interest.  The present study investigates a number of different techniques for implementing various energetic materials on-chip with microscale resolution.  Materials include aluminum based nanothermites, and porous silicon with unique or novelly placed oxidizers.   Materials were placed on-chip via drop-casting, printing, deposition, nanowicking or variations in deposition or photolithography techniques, and characterization was performed via, high-speed imaging, SEM, and DSC.