Une nouvelle génération de dispositifs électroniques et optoélectroniques combinant hautes performances et bas coût se profile grâce aux promesses des films à boîtes quantiques colloïdales (BQCs) et de leurs propriétés électriques et optiques uniques. Les BQCs sont des nanocristaux semi-conducteurs synthétisés en solution qui se comportent comme des atomes artificiels. Des progrès considérables ont été réalisés durant la dernière décennie pour développer une optoélectronique à base de films BQCs mais les performances des composants réalisés sont toujours limitées par un certain nombre de propriétés propres à ces milieux telles que leur granularité et la présence de ligands à la surface des nanocristaux. Un deuxième type de matériaux artificiels, les métamatériaux, suscite un intérêt considérable de la part de la communauté de la nano-optique en raison des perspectives qu'ils offrent pour surmonter la limite de diffraction, réaliser des capes d'invisibilités et des indices de réfraction négatif en optique. Cependant, un certain nombre des applications potentielles des métamatériaux optiques se heurtent à leurs pertes élevées et au manque de fonctionnalités actives contrôlées électriquement.Bien que les films BQCs et les métamatériaux soient étudiés de façon indépendante et associés à deux champs de recherche distincts, leurs propriétés ont beaucoup d'éléments en commun puisqu'elles sont dans les deux cas largement dictées par leur géométrie interne. Il paraît donc intéressant d'exploiter ces analogies et de voir si les difficultés rencontrées dans chaque discipline ne peuvent pas être surmontées en combinant les deux approches. Cette thèse se propose de jeter les premiers ponts entre films BQCs et métamatériaux et constitue une première tentative d'établir une synergie entre ces deux types de milieux artificiels.Dans un premier temps, nous étudions des réseaux de nanoantennes plasmoniques capables d'exalter la photoluminescence spontanée de BQCs et apportons de nouveaux éléments de compréhension à ces interactions. Ensuite, nous décrivons la fabrication et la caractérisation de LEDs à BQCs inorganiques et émission par le haut. Ces LEDs sont développées de façon à servir de plateforme pour la dernière partie de ce travail qui consiste à hybrider les films BQCs et les métamatériaux. Dans cette dernière partie, nous insérons les réseaux d'antennes plasmoniques étudiés précédemment dans l'architecture des LEDs et démontrons une nouvelle forme d'électroluminescence artificielle. Celle-ci se traduit par l'émission de lumière par des nanopixels discrets qui peuvent être arrangés de façon arbitrairement complexe afin de générer toute une gamme de fonctionnalités. D'autres avantages seront présentés comme une brillance accrue, une tension de seuil extrêmement basse, des longueurs d'ondes d'émission contrôlées par la géométrie et un contrôle total de la polarisation. Une série d'expériences visant à sonder les mécanismes à l’œuvre dans ce nouveau type de LEDs sera présentée.Ce travail illustre le très grand potentiel qu'il y a à combiner différentes classes de matière artificielle et suggère que bien d'autres opportunités découleront d'une vision unifiée des différents milieux composites développés en physique, chimie et ingénierie. / A next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices with high performances and low cost is expected to take off with films of colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) thanks to their unique electrical and optical properties. CQDs are semiconducting nanocrystals synthesized in solution that behave as artificial atoms. Substantial progresses in CQD film-based optoelectronics has been made over the past decade, but the performances are still limited and governed by the merit and inherited properties of CQDs. Another type of artificial medium, metamaterials, is generating a considerable interest from the nano-optics community because of its promises for beating the diffraction limit, realizing invisible cloaks, and creating negative refractive of index at optical regime. However, many of the potential applications for optical metamaterials are limited by their losses and the lack of active functionalities driven by electricity.Although films of CQDs and metamaterials are studied independently and associated to two distinct fields, their properties are mainly determined by their inner geometry. In addition, the difficult hurdles from each field can be surmounted by cooperating with the other one. This dissertation establishes the first bridge to connect films of CQDs and metamaterials and is a first attempt at exploiting the synergy of different types of artificial media.Firstly, we study plasmonic nanoantenna arrays capable of enhancing the spontaneous photoluminescence of CQDs and provide new fundamental insight into these interactions. Secondly, we report the fabrication and characterization of the first inorganic top-emission infrared quantum dot light-emitting-diodes (QDLEDs). The diodes are developed to serve as a solid platform for studying the CQDs film/metamaterial hybrids. Finally, we insert the plasmonic nanoantenna arrays studied at the beginning of this thesis in our QDLEDs and demonstrate a novel form of electroluminescence in which light is emitted by discrete nanoscale pixels that than be arranged at will to form complex light emitting metasurfaces. Other advantages associated with our metamaterial QDLEDs will also be presented i.e. greatly enhanced brightness, extremely low turn-on voltage, emissive color tunability, and polarized electroluminescence. A series of controlled experiments to probe the operational mechanisms of metamaterial QDLED will be discussed.This demonstration illustrates the enormous synergy of combining different types of artificial matter and suggests that many other opportunities will arise by taking an unified view of the various artificial media developed in physics, chemistry and engineering.

Les métamatériaux sont des structures composites périodiques sub-longueur d’onde pouvant posséder une perméabilité et/ou une permittivité négative. Si ces deux grandeurs sont négatives simultanément, nous sommes en présence d’un matériau à indice négatif, appelés parfois matériaux « main gauche », capable donc de réfraction négative. Par le contrôle de certaines propriétés de la matière les métamatériaux offrent ainsi des comportements inexistants dans la nature. Ceci ouvre ainsi la voie à de nouvelles applications. Dans cette thèse, l’utilisation de matériaux diélectriques se justifie par la réduction d'un inconvénient majeur, les pertes. On s’affranchie en effet de la limites des pertes ohmiques dans les matériaux métalliques. Une étude numérique approfondie des résonateurs diélectriques, composants de base des métamatériaux « tout-diélectrique », a été menée à l’aide d’un logiciel commercial d’éléments finis. Cette étude a permis de mettre en évidence à l’entrée de la gamme terahertz une perméabilité, une permittivité et un indice de réfraction négatifs, pour deux céramiques particulières : le SrTiO₃ et le TiO₂. Les études paramétriques effectuées sur ces deux céramiques ont permises de mettre en évidente le rôle primordial du couplage inter-modal dans l’obtention d’un indice négatif. Nous avons également montré le caractère non conventionnel du couplage inter-modal lorsque les deux modes sont de nature différente, l’un magnétique, l’autre électrique. Il existe en effet deux régimes de couplage distincts, l’un de simple rapprochement des modes de résonances, l’autre de dégénérescence des modes où ceux-ci restent à la même fréquence sur une large gamme, chose jusqu’alors peu visible dans la littérature. En plus de cet apport théorique, nos études paramétriques ont permis de proposer une alternative au paradigme à deux résonateurs, en montrant la faisabilité d’un métamatériau à indice négatif à l’aide d’une cellule élémentaire bimodale au térahertz. / Metamaterials are periodic sub wavelength composite structures how may have a negative permeability and / or a negative permittivity. If permittivity and permeability are negative simultaneously, we are in presence of what we called a negative index material, sometimes called “left hand media", capable of negative refraction. By controlling some of these properties, metamaterials allow us to obtained behavior nonexistent in nature. This opens the way to new applications. In this thesis, the use of dielectric materials is justified by the reduction of a major downside: losses. Thanks to the removal of ohmic losses specific to metallic materials. A thorough numerical study of dielectric resonators, basic components of "all-dielectric" metamaterials, was conducted using a finite element commercial software. This study highlighted, at the beginning of the terahertz range, a negative permeability, a negative permittivity and a negative index, for two special ceramics, well known in literature: SrTiO₃ and TiO₂. The parametric studies on these ceramics have allowed to put in clear the key role of the inter-modal coupling in order to obtain a negative index. We have also shown the unconventional nature of inter-modal coupling when the two modes concerned are different: one magnetic, other electric. There are in fact two different coupling regimes: a simple progressive shifting of both resonance modes, and then the apparition of degenerative regime, where both modes are at the same frequency for a long range, something not really common in the literature. In addition to this theoretical contribution, our parametric studies have proposed an alternative to the two resonators paradigm, showing the possibility to design a negative index metamaterial with a single bimodal cell in terahertz range.

L’étude des propriétés plasmoniques est un champ de recherche actuellement très actif. En particulier, la possibilité de manipuler la lumière à des échelles sub-longueur d’ondes rend ce domaine très attractif. Récemment, plusieurs études ont montré que les plasmons collectifs dans des méta-matériaux bi-dimensionnels constitués de nanoparticules métalliques se comportaient de manière similaire aux électrons dans les cristaux et partageaient certaines de leurs propriétés. Dans ce manuscrit, nous présentons une théorie unifiée permettant de décrire les propriétés de tels modes plasmoniques dans des réseaux ordonnés de géométrie arbitraires constitués de nanoparticules métalliques couplées en champ proche. En particulier, nous évaluons les taux de décroissance de ces modes ainsi que leurs décalages en fréquence afin de prédire leur observabilité expérimentale. / The study of plasmonic properties is one of the fields of research currently very active. In particular, the ability to manipulate light at subwavelength scales makes this subject very appealing. Recently, several studies have shown that collective plasmons in two-dimensional meta-materials based on metallic nanoparticles behave similarly to electrons in crystals and share some of their properties. In this manuscript, we present a unified theory for describing the properties of such modes in regular arrays of arbitrary geometries constituted by near-field coupled spherical nanoparticles. In particular, we have evaluated the linewidths of these modes as well as their frequency shifts in order to discussed their experimental observabilities.

<p>Understanding how light interacts with the matter is essential for developing future opto-electronic devices. Furthermore, tuning such light-matter interaction requires designing new material platforms that is essential for developing devices which are functional in different light wavelength regimes. Among these designs, particle-in-matrix, multilayer or nanowire morphology, consisting of metal and dielectric materials, have been demonstrated for achieving improved physical and optical properties, such as ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism and negative refraction. For example, Au-TiO₂ two phase nanocomposite has been explored in this dissertation as a way of achieving enhanced photocatalysis. However, due to the availability of a limited range of structures in terms of crystallinity and morphology in the two-phase nanocomposites, a greater design flexibility and structural complexity along with versatile growth techniques are needed for developing next generation integrated photonic and electronic devices. This can be achieved by incorporating a third phase through the three phase nanocomposite designs by judicious selection of materials and functionalities. </p> <p>In this dissertation, a new nanocomposite design having three different phases has been introduced: Au, BaTiO₃ and ZnO, which grow in a highly ordered ‘nanoman’-like structure. More interestingly, the three phases in the novel ‘nanoman’-like structure combine to give an emergent new property which are not found individually in the three phases. The ordered ‘nanoman’-like structures enable a high degree of tunability in their optical and electrical properties, including the hyperbolic dispersion in the visible and near infrared regime, in addition to the prominent ferroelectric/piezoelectric properties. Moreover, the growth kinetics and the thermal stability (using in-situ Transmission Electron Microscopy) of the ‘nanoman’ structures has also been studied. This study introduces a new growth paradigm of fabricating three-phase nanocomposite that will surely generate wide interests with potential applications to different systems. The ordered three-phase ‘nanoman’ structures present enormous opportunities for novel complex nanocomposite designs towards future optical, electrical and magnetic property tuning.</p>

This paper deals with a novel active bending soft body that employs metamaterials and combines soft behavior, integrated actuation, low complexity and a high density of producible forces and moments. The presented concept consists of a tube-like structure with tailored, unconventional material properties which enable the generation of a bending deformation and/or moment when circumferential stress and/or strain is induced. Circumferential actuation can be generated by a difference in pressure between the internal and external surface of the tube or, alternatively, by distributed expansion actuators that act radially or tangentially (e.g. shape memory wires). In addition to an analytical model, this paper also presents a design procedure and deals with the implementation of the proposed concept in a functional prototype and its experimental characterization.

<p>The capability of manipulation of the flow of mechanical energy in the form of mechanical waves (including acoustic and elastic waves) has always been a challenge and a critical part in various areas of engineering. The recent advances in topological acoustic/elastic metamaterials certainly open a new pathway to the manipulation of mechanical waves, especially for the novel scattering-immune wave-guiding capability, even in the presence of defects, disorders or sharp bends along the waveguide. In this Dissertation, the theoretical background and experimental evidence of various types of elastic-wave topological metamaterials including analogues to 2D quantum valley Hall effect (QVHE) materials, 2D quantum spin Hall effect (QSHE) topological insulators are presented. First, the formulation the elastic-wave analogue to QVHE materials in a general continuous elastic phononic structure (not limited to local resonant lattices, filling the gap in the literature) is proposed, and a strategy using pressurized cells to actively control the phononic lattice is presented. By finite prestrain and geometric nonlinear effect, the space inversion symmetry of the original hexagonal lattice is broken, resulting in distinct QVHE phases (characterized by valley Chern numbers) in lattice domains with opposite pressurization. With such mechanism, the edge-state path, i.e., the domain wall connecting lattices with distinct QVHE phases, can be real-time configured. Further more, edge states with tunable frequency-wavenumber dispersion can be created at the external boundaries of the lattice by appropriate pressurization of the outermost cells. An aluminum reticular sheet built with water-jet cutting is machined in the pre-deformed pattern with a Z-shape domain wall at the center, which spatially divides the sheet into two domains with opposite QVHE phases. Using piezoelectric transducers and laser Doppler vibrometry, the measured harmonic and transient responses confirm the back-scattering-immunity of the topological edge states, and the frequency-wavenumber dispersion matches the numerical prediction. A strategy is proposed for unidirectionally generating edge states along the domain wall using two off-phase transducers, which is also experimentally demonstrated. For elastic-wave analogue to QSHE topological insulators, we focus on the ``zone-folding'' method and propose a honeycomb 2D elastic beam network with periodically altered thickness with a generalized Kekule distortion pattern. Such framework provides a parametric space with exhaustive control in the topological phase diagram of waves in the lattice compared to earlier works in the literature. The effective Hamiltonian as well as the characterized topological phase are gauge dependent, particularly they change with different reference frames. This lead to ambiguity in the topological phase of such phononic crystal. Based on this argument, it is predicted that edge states could exist at a dislocation interface connecting two piece of phononic structures of the same pattern with relative displacement. Following the same idea, but considering the available fabrication options, a phononic plate with honeycomb groove pattern engraved on both sides is built, which the depth varied according to the Kekule pattern. With proper tuning of the parameters, it realizes an analogue to the QSHE topological insulator. With <em>ab initio</em> calculation of the Berry curvature (without involving any approximations such as the perturbative approach), a new topological invariant <em>local topological charge</em> is defined and evaluated as the counterpart of the Z₂ invariant in the classical-wave-zone-folding analogue. The local topological charge has intrinsic ambiguity and its value depends on the selected reference frame. However, its <em>change </em>according to changes in the parameters, under a consistent reference frame, is well-defined. Given the fact that shifting the reference frame by certain fractions of a lattice constant was equivalent to changing one of the parameters by a certain amount, it also lead to a well-defined change in the local topological charge, which indicates topological phase transition, and one can predict the existence of edge states at the displacement-dislocation interface between two neighboring lattices having the same pattern up to a rigid-body shifting. The phononic plate is machined by a CNC mill, and the experiment is carried out using piezoelectric transducers and laser Doppler vibrometry, which confirms the existence and robustness of the topological edge states at such dislocation interface connecting identical pattern, which was unprecedented in both quantum and classical systems. The final part of this Dissertation focuses on creating classical mechanical analogues to the 1D Kitaev superconducting model and Majorana-like bound states aimed at future acoustic-wave based computation.</p>

The mechanical and structural engineering community are increasingly resorting to the use of periodic metamaterials and metastructures to mitigate high amplitude vibrations; and nonlinearities are also an active area of research because they potentially provide different methods for controlling elastic waves. While the theory of propagation of linear elastic waves seems to be fairly complete and has led to remarkable discoveries in a variety of disciplines, there is still much to investigate about nonlinear waves, both in terms of their dispersion analytical description and their numerical characterization. This thesis mainly relies on the latter aspect and focuses on the analysis of nonlinear metamaterials and metastructures for both the mitigation and control of elastic waves. In particular, the thesis covers four main topics, each associated with a different nonlinearity: i) dispersion curves and mechanical parameters identification of a weakly nonlinear cubic 1D locally resonant metamaterial; ii) manipulation of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) through a postbuckling-based switching mechanism; iii) seismic vibration mitigation of a multiple-degrees-of-freedom (MDoF) system, the so-called metafoundation, by means of hysteretic nonlinear lattices; iv) seismic vibration mitigation of a periodic coupled system pipeline-pipe rack (PPR), by means of a vibro-impact system (VIS). To identify the dispersion curves of a cubic nonlinear 1D locally resonant metamaterial, a simple experimentally-informed reference subsystem (RS) which embodies the unit cell is employed. The system identification relies on the Floquet--Bloch (FB) periodic conditions applied to the RS. Instead, the parametric identification is carried out with a revised application of the subspace identification (SSI) method involving harmonic, non-persistent excitation. It is remarkable that the proposed methodology, despite the linearization caused by the FB boundary conditions, is responsive to the amplitude of the excitation that affects the dispersion curves. The FB theorem, in fact, is often adopted to reduce the computational burden in calculating the dispersion curves of metamaterials. In contrast, the experimental dispersion reconstruction requires multiple velocity measurements by means of laser Doppler vibrometers (LDVs), as for the case of SAWs. To manipulate SAWs, a proof-of-concept experiment was performed for a postbuckling-based mechanical switching mechanism. Precompressed beams are periodically arranged on one face of an elastic plate to manipulate the dispersion of the SAWs propagating as edge waves. By compressing the columns over their Euler critical load, in fact, it is possible to manipulate the surface wave dispersion: the dispersion curve’s dispersive branches, originally caused by the beams in the undeformed configuration, are cleared, and the original path of the group velocity is restored. This concept is introduced analytically and numerically in this thesis, and a novel device is proposed for controlling the SAWs. With regard to the mitigation of seismic waves, this thesis presents the application of two nonlinear dissipative devices to periodic components and structures of industrial facilities. Firstly, a finite locally resonant metafoundation of an MDoF fuel storage tank is equipped with fully nonlinear hysteretic devices to mitigate absolute accelerations and displacements in the low-frequency regime. Secondly, for mitigating the vibrations in PPRs, spatial periodicity and internal damping are combined to obtain an enhancement in the attenuation rate of the system. At the same time, the seismic performance of the PPR is improved by means of an external nonlinear VIS. These investigations show the characterization of the structures’ responses due to the stochastic nature of the input; and for the case of the VIS, a chaotic behavior is sometimes observed and demonstrated. In conclusion, this thesis investigates the nonlinear response of different periodic structures and their potential for wave control and mitigation in various applications. The results of this research contribute to the understanding of the nonlinear behavior of these periodic structures and provide insights into the design, the optimization, and the identification of metamaterials and metastructures performance.

La plasmónica es la ciencia que estudia la interacción, a escala nanométrica, entre la luz y los electrones libres de los metales, dando lugar a la propagación de ondas altamente confinadas a su superficie. La plasmónica tiene multitud de aplicaciones en nanotecnología, como son el sensado biológico y químico, espectroscopía, nanolitografía, comunicaciones de banda ultra ancha integradas en chips, nanoantenas para luz, filtrado, y manipulación de señales ópticas, entre muchas otras. Una de las aplicaciones más novedosas es la creación de metamateriales: estructuras artificiales diseñadas para controlar la propagación de la luz, con aplicaciones fascinantes como la lente perfecta o la capa de invisibilidad. La plasmónica y los metamateriales están al frente de la investigación actual en fotónica, gracias al auge de la nanotecnología y la nanociencia, que abre las puertas a una gran cantidad de nuevas aplicaciones. Esta tesis, desarrollada en el Centro de Tecnología Nanofotónica de Valencia de la UPV, en colaboración con la University of Pennsylvania y King's College London, trata de aportar nuevas ideas, estructuras y dispositivos a los campos de la plasmónica y los metamateriales, tratando de realizar su fabricación y medida experimental cuando sea posible. La tesis no se ciñe a una única aplicación o dispositivo, sino que realiza una extensiva exploración de los diversos sub-campos de la plasmónica en busca de fenómenos novedosos. Los resultados descritos son los siguientes: En el campo de los metamateriales de índice negativo se presentan dos estructuras: nanocables en forma de U, y guías coaxiales plasmónicas. En el campo del sensado plasmónico se presenta el diseño y la prueba experimental de un sensor se sustancias químicas de altas prestaciones con nanocruces metálicas. También se detallan teóricamente: un novedoso dispositivo para luz lenta e inversión temporal de pulsos basada en metamateriales y cristales fotónicos, un metamaterial para conversión de polarización sintonizable mediante pérdidas, un análogo plasmónico al efecto de levitación Meissner en superconductores y un método de reducción de pérdidas en guías plasmónicas mediante interferencia en guías multimodo. Por último se presenta teórica y experimentalmente un nuevo ejemplo fundamental de interferencia de campo cercano, logrando la excitación unidireccional de modos fotónicos ---ya sean plasmónicos o no--- mediante los campos cercanos de un dipolo circularmente polarizado. / Rodríguez Fortuño, FJ. (2013). Design and implementation of plasmonic metamaterials and devices [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/31207 / Premios Extraordinarios de tesis doctorales

Cellular mechanical metamaterials (CMMs) are a special class of materials that consist of microstructural architectures of macroscopic hierarchical frameworks that can have extraordinary properties. These properties largely depend on the topology and arrangement of the unit cells constituting the microstructure. The material hierarchy facilitates the synthesis and design of CMMs on the micro-scale to achieve enhanced properties (i.e., improved strength, toughness, low density) on the component (macro)-scale. However, designing on-demand cellular metamaterials usually requires solving a challenging inverse problem to explore the complex structure-property relations. The first part of this study (Ch. 3) proposes an experience-free and systematic design methodology for microstructures of CMMs using an advanced stochastic searching algorithm called micro-genetic algorithm (μGA). Locally, this algorithm minimizes the computational expense of the genetic algorithm (GA) with a small population size and a conditionally reduced parameter space. Globally, the algorithm employs a new search strategy to avoid local convergence induced by the small population size and the complexity of the parameter space. What's more, inspired by natural evolution in the GA, this study applies the inverse design method with the standard GA (sGA) as a sampling algorithm for intuitively mapping material-property spaces of CMMs, which requires the selection of objective properties and stochastic search of property points within the property space. The mapping methodology utilizing the sGA is proposed in the second part of the study (Ch. 4). This methodology involves a robust strategy that is shown to identify more comprehensive property spaces than traditional mapping approaches. The resulting property space allows designers to acknowledge the limitations of material performance, and select an appropriate class of CMMs based on the difficulty of the realization and fabrication of their microstructures. During the fabrication process, manufacturing defects cause uncertainty in the microstructures, and thus the structural properties. The third part of the study (Ch. 5) investigates the effects of the uncertainty stemming from manufacturing defects on the material property space. To accelerate the uncertainty quantification (UQ) via the Monte Carlo method, this study utilizes a machine learning technique to bypass the expensive simulations to compute properties. In addition to reducing the computational expense of the simulations, the deep learning method has been proven to be practical to accomplish non-intuitive design tasks. Due to the numerous combinations of properties and complex underlying geometries of metamaterials, it is numerically intractable to obtain optimal material designs that satisfy multiple user-defined performance criteria at the same time. Nevertheless, a deep learning method called conditional generative adversarial networks (CGANs) is capable of solving this many-to-many inverse problem. The fourth part of the study (Ch. 6) proposes a new inverse design framework using CGANs to overcome this challenge. Given combinations of target properties, the framework can generate a group of geometric patterns providing these target properties. Therefore, the proposed strategy provides alternative solutions to satisfy on-demand requirements while increasing the freedom in the fabrication process. Besides, with the advances in additive manufacturing (AM), the design space of an engineering material can be further enlarged by multi-scale topology optimization. As the interplay between microstructure and macrostructure drives the overall mechanical performance of engineering materials, it is necessary to develop a multi-scale design framework to optimize structural features in these two scales simultaneously. The final part of the study (Ch. 7) presents a concurrent multi-scale topology optimization method of CMMs. Structures in micro and macro scales are optimized concurrently by utilizing sequential quadratic programming (SQP) with the Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP) method and a numerical homogenization approach. / Doctor of Philosophy / Cellular materials widely exist in natural biological systems such as honeycombs, bones, and wood. Recent advances in additive manufacturing have enabled us to fabricate these materials with high precision. Inspired by architectures in nature, cellular mechanical metamaterials (CMMs) have been introduced recently as a new class of architected systems. The materials are formed by hierarchical microstructural topologies, which have a decisive influence on the structural performance at the macro-scale. Therefore, the design of these materials primarily focuses on the geometric arrangement of their microstructures rather than the chemical composition of their base material. Tailoring the microstructures of these materials can lead to several outstanding features, such as high stiffness and strength, low density, and high energy absorption. However, it is challenging to design microstructures that satisfy user-defined requirements for properties and material costs. This is mainly due to the trade-off between the accuracy and computing times of the optimization process. In the first part of this study (Ch. 3), a design framework is proposed to overcome this issue. The framework employs a global search algorithm called the genetic algorithm (GA). With a newly designed search algorithm, the framework reduces errors between target and optimized material properties while improving computational efficiency. Inspired by the algorithm behind the GA, the second part of the study (Ch. 4) employs a similar algorithm to identify a material property chart demonstrating all possible combinations of mechanical properties of CMMs. Each axis of the material property chart corresponds to a selected mechanical property, such as Young's modulus or Poisson's ratio, along different directions. The boundary of the property space helps designers understand material performance limitations and make informed decisions in engineering practices. In the fabrication process, unexpected material properties might be achieved due to defects and tolerances in additive manufacturing (AM), such as uneven surfaces, shrinkage of pores, etc. The third part of the study (Ch. 5) investigates the uncertainty propagation on mechanical properties as a result of these manufacturing defects. To investigate the uncertainty propagation problem efficiently, the study uses a deep learning method to predict the variations (stochasticity) of properties. Consequently, the material property space boundary also varies with the uncertainty of properties. In addition to their computational efficiency, deep learning methods are beneficial for solving many-to-many inverse design problems. Traditionally, the global and local search/optimization methods retrieve alternative optimal solutions in their Pareto front set, where each solution is considered to be equally good. A deep learning method called conditional generative adversarial networks (CGANs) can bypass the property calculation to accelerate the simulation process while obtaining a group of candidates with on-demand properties. The fourth part of the study (Ch. 6) employs CGANs to build a new inverse design framework to increase flexibility in the fabrication process by generating alternative solutions for the microstructures of CMMs. Besides, as fabrication technologies have advanced, designing engineering systems has become increasingly complex. Material design is now not only focused on meeting micro-scale requirements but also addressing needs at multiple scales. The interaction between the microstructure (small-scale) and macrostructure (large-scale) significantly influences the overall performance of engineering systems. To optimize structures effectively, there is a need for a design framework that considers these two scales simultaneously. Thus, the final part of the study (Ch. 7) introduces a method called concurrent multi-scale topology optimization. To obtain the extreme performance of a multi-scale structure, this approach optimizes its structure at both micro- and macro-scales concurrently, using gradient-based optimization algorithms with density-based property determination methods in the two scales.

1-Microevaporation - Microfluidics is the branch of fluid mechanics dedicated to the study of flows in the channel withdimensions between 1 micron and 100 micron. The object of this chapter is to illustrate the basicprinciples and possible applications of microfluidic chip, called microevaporator. In the first part ofthe chapter, we present a detailed description of the physics of microevaporators using analyticalarguments, and describe some applications. In the second part of the chapter, we present theexperimental protocol of engineering of micro evaporator and different type of microfluidics device.2- On-chip microspectroscopy - The object of this chapter is to illustrate a method to measure absorption spectra during theprocess of growth of our materials in our microfluidic tools. The aim is to make an opticalcharacterization of our micro materials and to carry-out a spatio-temporal study of kineticproperties of our dispersion under study. This instrumental chapter presents the theoretical basis !of the method we used.3-Role of colloidal stability in the growth of micromaterials - We used combined microspectroscopy and videomicroscopy to follow the nucleation and growth ofmaterials made of core-shell Ag@SiO2 NPs in micro evaporators.!We evidence that the growth is actually not always possible, and instead precipitation may occurduring the concentration process. This event is governed by the concentration of dispersion in thereservoir and we assume that its origin come from ionic species that are concentrated all togetherwith the NPs and may alter the colloidal stability en route towards high concentration. 4-Microfluidic-induced growth and shape-up of three-dimensional extended arrays of denselypacked nano particles - In this chapter I present in details microfluidic evaporation experiments to engineer various denselypacked 3D arrays of NPs.5-Bulk metamaterials assembled by microfluidic evaporation - In this chapter I introduced the technique we used (microspot ellipsometry) in close collaborationswith V.Kravets and A.Grigorenko(University of Manchester) and with A.Aradian, P.Barois, A.Baron,K.Ehrhardt(CRPP, Pessac) to characterized the solids made of densely packed NPs. I describe theconstraints that emerge from the coupling between the small size of our materials and the opticalrequirements, the analysis and interpretation of the ellipsometry experiments show that for thematerial with high volume fraction of metal exists the strong electrical coupling between the NPsand the materials display an extremely high refraction index in the near infra-red regime.