High‐Throughput Printing via Microvascular Multinozzle Arrays

Christopher J Hansen,David B Kolesky,Gregory P Muldowney,Jennifer A Lewis,Kenneth T Christensen,Stephen J Kranz,Rajat Saksena,John J Vericella

doi:10.1002/adma.201203321

Abstract

Microvascular multinozzle arrays are designed and fabricated for high-throughput printing of functional materials. Ink-flow uniformity within these multigeneration, bifurcating microchannel arrays is characterized by computer modeling and microscopic particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) measurements. Both single and dual multinozzle printheads are produced to enable rapid printing of multilayered periodic structures over large areas (≈1 m(2)).

Highlights

High-throughput printing of functional materials in planar and three-dimensional motifs would enable numerous applications, including autonomic materials with embedded microvascularization,[1,2] 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering[3] and cell culture,[4,5] lightweight structural composites,[6,7,8,9] and printed electronics.[10,11] To date, direct laser[12,13] and ink-writing methods[14,15] have been primarily used to produce small components (
Parallel variants of dip-pen nanolithography, such as polymer pen lithography and hard-tip, soft-spring lithography, use polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or silicon multitip arrays to deposit low-viscosity functional inks on a substrate to yield 2D nanoscale patterns.[17,18]
Projection micro-stereolithography enables 3D fabrication via a digital micromirror dynamic mask, which selectively polymerizes voxels in parallel.[21]. Each of these droplet, filament, or layer-based techniques is fundamentally limited to low viscosity inks, dilute precursor solutions, or photocurable organic resins; they often require many deposition steps to achieve 3D structures

Summary

Introduction

High-throughput printing of functional materials in planar and three-dimensional motifs would enable numerous applications, including autonomic materials with embedded microvascularization,[1,2] 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering[3] and cell culture,[4,5] lightweight structural composites,[6,7,8,9] and printed electronics.[10,11] To date, direct laser[12,13] and ink-writing methods[14,15] have been primarily used to produce small components (

Results

Conclusion