Equipment and specialist areas
Functional printing
In the interesting world of functional printing, machines are not printing out text and images, but functional devices like pages of working sensors. The kind of functional printing you might be familiar with is the production of braille: raised dots on paper that allowing blind people to touch read. At the other end of the functional printing spectrum are multi-layer devices that have electrical properties such as light emitting diodes, solar panels, and sensors.
The Newcastle ANFF Hub is the only facility of its kind in Australia, offering the tools and services to translate developments in the laboratory into printable products that can be produced at scale by industry.
The pilot-scale facilities include multiple roll-to-roll (R2R) systems which can print ink layers, metal layers, and encapsulate devices.
Functional printing equipment available for hire (PDF, 5.3MB).
Rapid prototyping
The team at the Newcastle ANFF Hub is experienced at combining your specialised domain knowledge with our extensive understanding of production and development to rapidly move towards production ready prototypes. We are here to help you translate your research innovations into proof-of-concept, production ready prototypes and systems.
Our multi-disciplinary team brings expertise in physics, engineering and design and is able to utilise the unique set of equipment available at the centre to rapidly produce prototypes. As functional printing is at the core of the work being done at the hub, most of the rapid prototyping focuses on developing outcomes that could eventually be produced using high-volume, low-cost, roll-to-roll (R2R) printing.
We have been involved in of projects including the development of the next generation of atom microscopy equipment, creating real-world installations of printed solar, developing medical devices for lung disease detection and rapid COVID-19 testing.
Rapid prototype equipment available for hire (PDF, 5.3MB).
Surface characterisation
When using functional printing to manufacture a product, the layers being printed are often only nanometres thick and the surface properties dominate. Therefore, an important element of functional printing is understanding the surface properties of materials. This need to understand the fundamental properties of extremely thin layers has driven the development of a comprehensive suite of surface characterisation tools.
Along with standard equipment such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) and ultraviolet visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), the Newcastle ANFF Hub has the only scanning helium microscope (SHeM) in the world that is available for external users. This unique tool allows for damage free imaging of delicate samples such soft polymers and biological samples.
Surface Characterisation Equipment available for hire (PDF, 5.3MB).
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.