Ultrasonic vibration-assisted high-resolution electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing

Abstract

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing has become a promising and cost-effective technique for producing high-resolution and large-scale features. One widely recognized obstacle in EHD printing is nozzle clogging due to solvent evaporation or ink polymerization. Moreover, printing highly viscous materials often requires pressure or other external force to assist the ink flow during the printing, which increases the complexity of process control and the required energy. In this work, we developed a novel ultrasonic vibration-assisted EHD printhead and associated process to effectively eliminate the nozzle clogging for the printing of high-viscosity and high-evaporation-rate inks. A series of experimental tests were conducted to characterize the printhead design and process parameters (i.e., vibration frequency, vibration amplitude, and printing voltage). The results demonstrated that superimposing ultrasonic vibration on the EHD printing nozzle can effectively enhance current EHD printing capabilities, such as reducing required pressure, eliminating nozzle clogging, and providing stable and continuous printing for high viscosity and high solvent evaporation rate material. With the optimal parameters, a filament with a diameter of around 1 µm can be continuously printed. In the paper, we successfully applied this developed ultrasonic-assisted EHD process to print high-resolution 2D patterns.