Congratulations to Anuvi Gupta, a sophomore in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, on being selected as a Case School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University SOURCE - STEM 2023 Summer Research Scholar. Following her spring semester EMSE 325 research experience with Research Assistant Professor, Janet Gbur, Anuvi applied for the CWRU Support of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE) Summer Undergraduate Research Program.

Her summer project entitled, "Optimizing the Adhesion of Aerosol Jet Printing Silver Ink onto Surface Treated Silicone," will contribute to the development of flexible sensors. According to Gupta, silicone is a commonly used polymer in the medical field and for this particular project will be used as a substrate for silver ink deposition via aerosol jet printing to create a flexible implantable circuit board. “Silicone naturally has a low surface energy, meaning that the silver ink is more likely to peel off of it if the circuit is bent.” says Gupta, “To fix this problem, I will be focusing on improving the adhesive properties of silicone using plasma etching. This will increase its surface roughness so the surface energy and wettability is increased, which will make it less likely for the silver ink to peel off.”

“Anuvi’s work has the potential to impact a variety of projects that seek to use silicone as a substrate for flexible electronics,” states Gbur, her SOURCE-STEM mentor. “Long-term reliability of the ink-substrate interface is paramount to flexible circuit success and Anuvi’s work will provide valuable information for printing silicone-based flexible sensors.”