Radiation shielding of microelectronics via the additive manufacturing of nanocomposites
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
11 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. ET
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Avery Rosh, Assistant Staff
Advanced Materials and Microsystems Group
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
The miniaturization of satellite systems has compounded the need to protect microelectronic components from damaging radiation. Current approaches to mitigate this damage, such as indiscriminate mass shielding, built-in redundancies, and radiation-hardened electronics, introduce high SWaP-C (Size, weight, and Power-Cost) penalties that reduce the overall performance of the satellite.
Additive manufacturing provides an appealing strategy to print radiation shielding only on susceptible components within an electronic assembly. Utilizing direct ink writing, we are able to conformally print customized nanocomposite inks at room temperatures directly and selectively onto commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics. The suite of inks uses a flexible styrene-isoprene-styrene block copolymer binder that can be filled with nanoparticles of varying atomic densities for varying radiation shielding capabilities.
Additionally, blended composites of both high and low Z fillers were created to investigate the performance in radiation attenuation depending on composition. We anticipate this low SWaP-C alternative to traditional shielding methods will enable the development of novel complex and compact satellite designs.
Attendees can join and participate in the series via Zoom.