Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to reports, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has recently developed a 3D printing accurate plasma sensor, which is cheap and easy to manufacture. These digital devices can help scientists predict the weather or study climate change. The plasma sensor, also known as the delayed potential Analyzer (RPAs), is used by orbiting spacecraft such as satellites to determine atmospheric chemical composition and ion energy distribution.

Because the semiconductor plasma sensor manufactured by 3D printing and laser cutting process requires a dust-free environment, the semiconductor plasma sensor is expensive and takes several weeks to manufacture. By contrast, the newly developed plasma sensor at MIT takes only a few days to make and costs dozens of dollars.

Because of its low cost and fast production speed, this new type of sensor is an ideal choice for cube satellite, which is low in cost, low in power and light in weight, and is often used for communication and environmental monitoring in the upper atmosphere of the earth.

The research team used glass-ceramic materials that are more flexible than traditional sensor materials such as silicon and thin-film coatings to develop new plasma sensors that can withstand the huge temperature fluctuations that spacecraft may encounter in low-Earth orbit by using glass-ceramics in the plastic 3D printing process.

Luis Fernando Verasquez-Garcia (Luis Fernando Velasquez-Garcia), senior author of the study and chief scientist at the Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: "augmented manufacturing will have a significant impact on future space hardware. Some people think that when 3D prints some objects, it must be recognized as having lower performance, but we have now proved that this is not always the case." At present, the latest research report is published in the recently published Journal of enhanced Manufacturing.

Multi-function sensor plasma sensor was first used in space missions in 1959. It can detect the energy of ions or charged particles floating in plasma, which is a mixture of superheated molecules in the upper atmosphere of the earth. On orbiting spacecraft such as CubeSat, plasma sensors can measure energy changes and conduct chemical analysis to help scientists predict weather or monitor climate change.

The sensor consists of a series of charged grids covered with holes, and when the plasma passes through the hole, electrons and other particles will be stripped off until only ions are left, and when these ions generate current, the sensor will measure and analyze them.

The key to the successful application of plasma sensor is to align the porous structure of the grid, which must have electrical insulation and be able to withstand sharp fluctuations in temperature. The researchers use a 3D printable glass ceramic material-Vitrolite, which meets the above characteristics. It is reported that Vitrolite material first appeared in the early 20th century, is often used in color tile design, and has become the most common material in decorative art architecture.

Durable Vitrolite materials can withstand temperatures up to 800C without decomposing, while polymers in integrated circuit plasma sensors begin to melt at 400C. "when workers build such sensors in a clean room, they don't have the same degree of freedom to define materials and structures and how they interact, but this could lead to the latest developments in incremental manufacturing," Garcia said. "

Re-recognize the 3D printing process of plasma sensor ceramic materials 3D printing process usually involves laser bombardment of ceramic powder, making it into a variety of shapes and structures, however, due to the high heat released by laser, the manufacturing process often makes the material rough and produce defects.

However, MIT scientists used reductive polymer polymerization in the manufacturing process, a process introduced decades ago using polymers or resins for augmentation. In reductive polymerization, the material is repeatedly immersed in a reduction cylinder containing Vitrolite liquid material, which forms a three-dimensional structure at a time. After each layer of structure is formed, the material is solidified with ultraviolet light. Each layer is only 100 microns thick (equivalent to the diameter of human hair) and will eventually be repeatedly immersed in Vitrolite liquid material to form a smooth, non-porous and complex ceramic structure.

In the digital manufacturing process, the manufacturing object described in the design document may be very complex. this high-precision design requires researchers to use a laser cutting grid with a unique structure, which is installed in the shell of the plasma sensor after printing. the small hole structure can be arranged perfectly to make more ions pass through it, so as to obtain more accurate measurement data.

Because of the low production cost and fast production speed, the research team made four unique design prototypes. One of the design prototypes is particularly effective in capturing and measuring a wide range of plasmas, especially for satellite orbital survey plasmas, and the other is very suitable for measuring plasmas with extremely high density and very low temperature. this is usually only used for ultra-precision semiconductor devices.

This high-precision design allows 3D printing sensors to be used in fusion energy research or supersonic flight, and Garcia added that this fast 3D printing process could even lead to more innovations in satellite and spacecraft design.

"if you want to keep innovating, you have to face failure and take risks," Garcia said. "adding materials is another way to build space equipment, and we can build space devices, and even if the process fails, it doesn't matter. Because we can still make a new version quickly and cheaply and iteratively update the design. This is an ideal sandbox effect for researchers. "

It is reported that although Garcia is satisfied with the newly designed plasma sensor, he hopes to continue to improve the manufacturing process in the future, reducing the layer thickness or pixel size in the glass-ceramic cylinder polymerization process, thus creating more accurate complex devices. In addition, full overlay manufacturing processes can make them increasingly compatible with space manufacturing, and he hopes to explore the use of artificial intelligence to continuously optimize sensor design to adapt to specific application scenarios, such as significantly reducing the weight of sensors while ensuring structural stability.

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