Fabrication and evaluation of a printhead with integrated electrodes for electrohydrodynamic jet printing on insulating substrate

Abstract

Printhead with integrated electrodes plays an important role in electrohydrodynamic jet (E-jet) printing, which can remove the effect of substrate and may be potentially used in fabrication of microelectrodes for flexible electronics. In this paper, we propose a printhead with integrated electrodes to achieve E-jet printing on insulating substrate. Evaluation of the printhead is performed by E-jet printing tests of ethylene glycol in order to validate correctness of design and feasibility of printing on insulating substrate. The printing tests on silicon indicate that the design of proposed printhead with integrated electrodes is correct which can work normally. However, influence of repulsive force by remaining electric charges on substrate is the main cause for failure tests on PET substrate. This research can provide a lesson to implement E-jet printing on insulating substrate in future.