High-resolution hybrid printing of polymer and molten metal ink for printed electronics

Abstract

Highly integrated, on-demand printed electronics attract lots of attention. The current fabrication methods for printed electronics are restricted to one material class and one technology, which limits the geometry design and the resolution of final products. The hybrid printing process is a potential method to effectively fabricate microscale 3D electronics with high resolution. In this paper, we developed a high-resolution (∼100 µm) hybrid printing process that integrates Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing and extrusion-based printing with metallic and polymeric material, respectively. Here, we characterized and verified the effect of several critical parameters, such as printing speed, pressure, voltage, and overlap on the printing process and quality of the printed features. The optimal set of printing parameters was determined for the hybrid printing process to obtain high-efficient and high-resolution printing. The best result obtained for PLA 1st layer is speed 1 mm/s, pressure 0.8 kg/cm2, overlap 25%. For the PLA 2nd layer, the best printing results are speed 0.4 mm/s, pressure 1 kg/cm2, and overlap 11%. The optimum result obtained for metal EHD printing is voltage 1.5 KV and speed 0.3 mm/s. At the end, we successfully implemented the hybrid printing process and printed high-resolution 3D electronics to demonstrate the potential capabilities of such hybrid printing in the fabrication of customized microelectronics.