Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing

Tafoya, Rebecca R.; Secor, Ethan B.

doi:10.1088/2058-8585/ab6e74

Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing

Journal Article · Tue Feb 11 23:00:00 EST 2020 · Flexible and Printed Electronics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2058-8585/ab6e74· OSTI ID:1601270

Tafoya, Rebecca R. ^[1]; ^[1]

Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Aerosol jet printing offers a versatile, high-resolution prototyping capability for flexible and hybrid electronics. Despite its rapid growth in recent years, persistent problems such as process drift hinder the adoption of this technology in production environments. Here we explore underlying causes of process drift during aerosol jet printing and introduce an engineered solution to improve deposition stability. In this work it is shown that the ink level within the cartridge is a critical factor in determining atomization efficiency, such that the reduction in ink volume resulting from printing itself can induce significant and systematic process drift. By integrating a custom 3D-printed cartridge with an ink recirculation system, ink composition and level within the cartridge are better maintained. This strategy allows extended duration printing with improved stability, as evidenced by 30 h of printing over 5 production runs. This provides an important tool for extending the duration and improving reliability for aerosol jet printing, a key factor for integration in practical manufacturing operations.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program. Harry S. Truman Fellowship

Grant/Contract Number:: AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525

OSTI ID:: 1601270

Report Number(s):: SAND--2020-1360J; 683614

Journal Information:: Flexible and Printed Electronics, Journal Name: Flexible and Printed Electronics Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 5; ISSN 2058-8585

Publisher:: IOPscienceCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (29)

The Effect of Droplet Sizes on Overspray in Aerosol-Jet Printing Chen, Guang; Gu, Yuan; Tsang, Harvey Advanced Engineering Materials, Vol. 20, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.201701084	journal	April 2018
Aerosol Jet Printed, Sub-2 V Complementary Circuits Constructed from P - and N -Type Electrolyte Gated Transistors Hong, Kihyon; Kim, Yong Hyun; Kim, Se Hyun Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 41 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201401330	journal	June 2014
Recent Progress in the Development of Printed Thin-Film Transistors and Circuits with High-Resolution Printing Technology Fukuda, Kenjiro; Someya, Takao Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 25 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201602736	journal	November 2016
Aerosol-Jet Printed Flexible Organic Photodiodes: Semi-Transparent, Color Neutral, and Highly Efficient Eckstein, Ralph; Rödlmeier, Tobias; Glaser, Tobias Advanced Electronic Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1002/aelm.201500101	journal	June 2015
Completely Printed, Flexible, Stable, and Hysteresis-Free Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Transistors via Aerosol Jet Printing Cao, Changyong; Andrews, Joseph B.; Franklin, Aaron D. Advanced Electronic Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1002/aelm.201700057	journal	April 2017
Aerosol-Jet-Assisted Thin-Film Growth of CH ₃ NH ₃ PbI ₃ Perovskites-A Means to Achieve High Quality, Defect-Free Films for Efficient Solar Cells Bag, Santanu; Deneault, James R.; Durstock, Michael F. Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 7, Issue 20 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701151	journal	July 2017
Metal aerosol jet printing for solar cell metallization Mette, A.; Richter, P. L.; Hörteis, M. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 15, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.759	journal	January 2007
A review of aerosol jet printing—a non-traditional hybrid process for micro-manufacturing Wilkinson, N. J.; Smith, M. A. A.; Kay, R. W. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 105, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-019-03438-2	journal	May 2019
Aerosol Jet Printing of Nano Particle Based Electrical Chip Interconnects Seifert, Tobias; Baum, Mario; Roscher, Frank Materials Today: Proceedings, Vol. 2, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2015.09.012	journal	January 2015
A low cost and flexible carbon nanotube pH sensor fabricated using aerosol jet technology for live cell applications Goh, Guo Liang; Agarwala, Shweta; Tan, Yu Jun Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Vol. 260 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2017.12.127	journal	May 2018
Ultrasonic atomization of liquids in drop-chain acoustic fountains Simon, Julianna C.; Sapozhnikov, Oleg A.; Khokhlova, Vera A. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 766 https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2015.11	journal	February 2015
Formation of Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide Thin Films from Colloidal Nanocrystal Dispersions via Aerosol-Jet Printing and Compaction Williams, Bryce A.; Mahajan, Ankit; Smeaton, Michelle A. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 7, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5b02484	journal	May 2015
Copper–Zinc–Tin–Sulfide Thin Films via Annealing of Ultrasonic Spray Deposited Nanocrystal Coatings Williams, Bryce A.; Trejo, Nancy D.; Wu, Albert ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 9, Issue 22 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.7b04414	journal	May 2017
Wearable Bandage-Based Strain Sensor for Home Healthcare: Combining 3D Aerosol Jet Printing and Laser Sintering Agarwala, Shweta; Goh, Guo Liang; Dinh Le, Truong-Son ACS Sensors, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1021/acssensors.8b01293	journal	December 2018
Optimization of Aerosol Jet Printing for High-Resolution, High-Aspect Ratio Silver Lines Mahajan, Ankit; Frisbie, C. Daniel; Francis, Lorraine F. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 5, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1021/am400606y	journal	May 2013
Printed, Sub-3V Digital Circuits on Plastic from Aqueous Carbon Nanotube Inks Ha, Mingjing; Xia, Yu; Green, Alexander A. ACS Nano, Vol. 4, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1021/nn100966s	journal	June 2010
Sol–gel magnetite inks for inkjet printing Kolchanov, Denis S.; Slabov, Vladislav; Keller, Kirill Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Vol. 7, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1039/C9TC00311H	journal	January 2019
Analytical Investigation of Aerosol Jet Printing Binder, Sebastian; Glatthaar, Markus; Rädlein, Edda Aerosol Science and Technology, Vol. 48, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2014.940439	journal	August 2014
Evaporation of Multicomponent Droplets Widmann, J. F.; Davis, E. J. Aerosol Science and Technology, Vol. 27, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1080/02786829708965470	journal	January 1997
Using a magnetite/thermoplastic composite in 3D printing of direct replacements for commercially available flow sensors Leigh, S. J.; Purssell, C. P.; Billson, D. R. Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 23, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/23/9/095039	journal	August 2014
Controlling and assessing the quality of aerosol jet printed features for large area and flexible electronics Smith, Michael; Choi, Yeon Sik; Boughey, Chess Flexible and Printed Electronics, Vol. 2, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1088/2058-8585/aa5af9	journal	February 2017
Aerosol Jet Printing for printed electronics rapid prototyping Gupta, Anubha A.; Bolduc, Antoine; Cloutier, Sylvain G. 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) https://doi.org/10.1109/ISCAS.2016.7527378	conference	May 2016
Flexible Electronics: The Next Ubiquitous Platform Nathan, A.; Ahnood, A.; Cole, M. T. Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 100, Issue Special Centennial Issue https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2012.2190168	journal	May 2012
Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling and Online Monitoring of Aerosol Jet Printing Process Salary, Roozbeh (Ross); Lombardi, Jack P.; Samie Tootooni, M. Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 139, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4034591	journal	October 2016
Online Monitoring of Functional Electrical Properties in Aerosol Jet Printing Additive Manufacturing Process Using Shape-From-Shading Image Analysis Salary, Roozbeh (Ross); Lombardi, Jack P.; Rao, Prahalad K. Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 139, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4036660	journal	August 2017
Three-dimensional microarchitected materials and devices using nanoparticle assembly by pointwise spatial printing Saleh, Mohammad Sadeq; Hu, Chunshan; Panat, Rahul Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1601986	journal	March 2017
Additive Manufacturing of Hybrid Circuits Sarobol, Pylin; Cook, Adam; Clem, Paul G. Annual Review of Materials Research, Vol. 46, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-matsci-070115-031632	journal	July 2016
A Review on Aerosol-Based Direct-Write and Its Applications for Microelectronics Hoey, Justin M.; Lutfurakhmanov, Artur; Schulz, Douglas L. Journal of Nanotechnology, Vol. 2012 https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/324380	journal	January 2012
On the Development of Focused Ultrasound Liquid Atomizers Al-Jumaily, Ahmed M.; Meshkinzar, Ata Advances in Acoustics and Vibration, Vol. 2017 https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/7861726	journal	January 2017

Similar Records

Understanding effects of printhead geometry in aerosol jet printing

Journal Article · Thu Jul 30 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Flexible and Printed Electronics · OSTI ID:1670198

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
additive manufacturing
aerosol jet printing
flexible electronics
printed electronics

Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing

Citation Formats

References (29)

Similar Records

Related Subjects