Electrohydrodynamic jet printing for desired print diameter

Abstract

Advent of flexible sensor technology necessitates micro-additive manufacturing for printing of conductive inks on flexible substrate. Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing, being one of such micro additive manufacturing methods, is under research boost, now-a-days. In EHD printing very fine drops can be deposited on the substrate surface with the help of applied electric field, so that the electric field parameters can be regulated to vary the size of the printed drops. Thus, there is more flexibility in EHD printing, as compared with other micro additive manufacturing, for achieving the targeted print width (line printing) or printed drop diameter (dot printing). However, there are five controllable process parameters (excluding nozzle, ink, substrate, and post printing parameters), selection of which is very challenging to achieve the expected print diameter. Thus, in this work, an attempt has been made to print silver nanoparticle on glass substrate by EHD jet printing for achieving 140 μm diameter dots from a capillary nozzle of 840 μm inner diameter. Three parameters (out of five) i.e., voltage, pulse frequency and duty ratio has been selected analytically to achieve the targeted print diameter. Finally, printing of silver dots with 145 μm to 165 μm diameter has been achieved, in this work.