Advances in nanotechnology require the development of
nanofabrication methods for a variety of available materials,
elements, and parameters. Existing methods do not possess specific
characteristics and general methods of versatile nanofabrication
remain elusive. In a new report now published in Science Advances,
Naijia Liu, Guannan Liu and a team of scientists in mechanical
engineering and materials science at the Yale University and the
University of Connecticut in the U.S. described the underlying
mechanisms of thermomechanical nanomolding to reveal a highly
versatile nanofabrication approach. Based on the results, they
could regulate, combine and predict the ability to develop general
materials with material combinations and length scales. The
mechanistic origins of thermomechanical nanomolding and their
temperature-dependent transition provided a process to combine many
materials in nanostructures and provide any material in moldable
shapes at the nanoscale.
