Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing
Abstract
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.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program. Harry S. Truman Fellowship
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1601270
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-2020-1360J
Journal ID: ISSN 2058-8585; 683614
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Flexible and Printed Electronics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 5; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2058-8585
- Publisher:
- IOPscience
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; flexible electronics; printed electronics; additive manufacturing; aerosol jet printing
Citation Formats
Tafoya, Rebecca R., and Secor, Ethan B. Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1088/2058-8585/ab6e74.
Tafoya, Rebecca R., & Secor, Ethan B. Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing. United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.1088/2058-8585/ab6e74
Tafoya, Rebecca R., and Secor, Ethan B. Wed .
"Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing". United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.1088/2058-8585/ab6e74. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1601270.
@article{osti_1601270,
title = {Understanding and mitigating process drift in aerosol jet printing},
author = {Tafoya, Rebecca R. and Secor, Ethan B.},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1088/2058-8585/ab6e74},
journal = {Flexible and Printed Electronics},
number = 1,
volume = 5,
place = {United States},
year = {2020},
month = {2}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
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
journal, July 2017
- Bag, Santanu; Deneault, James R.; Durstock, Michael F.
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 7, Issue 20
Online Monitoring of Functional Electrical Properties in Aerosol Jet Printing Additive Manufacturing Process Using Shape-From-Shading Image Analysis
journal, August 2017
- Salary, Roozbeh (Ross); Lombardi, Jack P.; Rao, Prahalad K.
- Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 139, Issue 10
Controlling and assessing the quality of aerosol jet printed features for large area and flexible electronics
journal, February 2017
- Smith, Michael; Choi, Yeon Sik; Boughey, Chess
- Flexible and Printed Electronics, Vol. 2, Issue 1
Aerosol Jet Printed, Sub-2 V Complementary Circuits Constructed from P - and N -Type Electrolyte Gated Transistors
journal, June 2014
- Hong, Kihyon; Kim, Yong Hyun; Kim, Se Hyun
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 41
Additive Manufacturing of Hybrid Circuits
journal, July 2016
- Sarobol, Pylin; Cook, Adam; Clem, Paul G.
- Annual Review of Materials Research, Vol. 46, Issue 1
Optimization of Aerosol Jet Printing for High-Resolution, High-Aspect Ratio Silver Lines
journal, May 2013
- Mahajan, Ankit; Frisbie, C. Daniel; Francis, Lorraine F.
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 5, Issue 11
Aerosol-Jet Printed Flexible Organic Photodiodes: Semi-Transparent, Color Neutral, and Highly Efficient
journal, June 2015
- Eckstein, Ralph; Rödlmeier, Tobias; Glaser, Tobias
- Advanced Electronic Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 8
Metal aerosol jet printing for solar cell metallization
journal, January 2007
- Mette, A.; Richter, P. L.; Hörteis, M.
- Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 15, Issue 7
A low cost and flexible carbon nanotube pH sensor fabricated using aerosol jet technology for live cell applications
journal, May 2018
- Goh, Guo Liang; Agarwala, Shweta; Tan, Yu Jun
- Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Vol. 260
The Effect of Droplet Sizes on Overspray in Aerosol-Jet Printing
journal, April 2018
- Chen, Guang; Gu, Yuan; Tsang, Harvey
- Advanced Engineering Materials, Vol. 20, Issue 8
Aerosol Jet Printing for printed electronics rapid prototyping
conference, May 2016
- Gupta, Anubha A.; Bolduc, Antoine; Cloutier, Sylvain G.
- 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS)
Completely Printed, Flexible, Stable, and Hysteresis-Free Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Transistors via Aerosol Jet Printing
journal, April 2017
- Cao, Changyong; Andrews, Joseph B.; Franklin, Aaron D.
- Advanced Electronic Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 5
Formation of Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide Thin Films from Colloidal Nanocrystal Dispersions via Aerosol-Jet Printing and Compaction
journal, May 2015
- Williams, Bryce A.; Mahajan, Ankit; Smeaton, Michelle A.
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 7, Issue 21
Recent Progress in the Development of Printed Thin-Film Transistors and Circuits with High-Resolution Printing Technology
journal, November 2016
- Fukuda, Kenjiro; Someya, Takao
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 25
Three-dimensional microarchitected materials and devices using nanoparticle assembly by pointwise spatial printing
journal, March 2017
- Saleh, Mohammad Sadeq; Hu, Chunshan; Panat, Rahul
- Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 3
Printed, Sub-3V Digital Circuits on Plastic from Aqueous Carbon Nanotube Inks
journal, June 2010
- Ha, Mingjing; Xia, Yu; Green, Alexander A.
- ACS Nano, Vol. 4, Issue 8
Using a magnetite/thermoplastic composite in 3D printing of direct replacements for commercially available flow sensors
journal, August 2014
- Leigh, S. J.; Purssell, C. P.; Billson, D. R.
- Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 23, Issue 9
Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling and Online Monitoring of Aerosol Jet Printing Process
journal, October 2016
- Salary, Roozbeh (Ross); Lombardi, Jack P.; Samie Tootooni, M.
- Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 139, Issue 2
Analytical Investigation of Aerosol Jet Printing
journal, August 2014
- Binder, Sebastian; Glatthaar, Markus; Rädlein, Edda
- Aerosol Science and Technology, Vol. 48, Issue 9
Flexible Electronics: The Next Ubiquitous Platform
journal, May 2012
- Nathan, A.; Ahnood, A.; Cole, M. T.
- Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 100, Issue Special Centennial Issue
Aerosol Jet Printing of Nano Particle Based Electrical Chip Interconnects
journal, January 2015
- Seifert, Tobias; Baum, Mario; Roscher, Frank
- Materials Today: Proceedings, Vol. 2, Issue 8
Copper–Zinc–Tin–Sulfide Thin Films via Annealing of Ultrasonic Spray Deposited Nanocrystal Coatings
journal, May 2017
- Williams, Bryce A.; Trejo, Nancy D.; Wu, Albert
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 9, Issue 22
A Review on Aerosol-Based Direct-Write and Its Applications for Microelectronics
journal, January 2012
- Hoey, Justin M.; Lutfurakhmanov, Artur; Schulz, Douglas L.
- Journal of Nanotechnology, Vol. 2012
Evaporation of Multicomponent Droplets
journal, January 1997
- Widmann, J. F.; Davis, E. J.
- Aerosol Science and Technology, Vol. 27, Issue 2
A review of aerosol jet printing—a non-traditional hybrid process for micro-manufacturing
journal, May 2019
- Wilkinson, N. J.; Smith, M. A. A.; Kay, R. W.
- The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 105, Issue 11
Sol–gel magnetite inks for inkjet printing
journal, January 2019
- Kolchanov, Denis S.; Slabov, Vladislav; Keller, Kirill
- Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Vol. 7, Issue 21
Ultrasonic atomization of liquids in drop-chain acoustic fountains
journal, February 2015
- Simon, Julianna C.; Sapozhnikov, Oleg A.; Khokhlova, Vera A.
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 766
Wearable Bandage-Based Strain Sensor for Home Healthcare: Combining 3D Aerosol Jet Printing and Laser Sintering
journal, December 2018
- Agarwala, Shweta; Goh, Guo Liang; Dinh Le, Truong-Son
- ACS Sensors, Vol. 4, Issue 1
On the Development of Focused Ultrasound Liquid Atomizers
journal, January 2017
- Al-Jumaily, Ahmed M.; Meshkinzar, Ata
- Advances in Acoustics and Vibration, Vol. 2017