Nanodroplet Flight Control in Electrohydrodynamic Redox 3D Printing

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electric field asymmetry affects droplet flight in electrohydrodynamic 3D printing, developing models to predict and optimize droplet trajectories for complex geometry fabrication.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze and compensate electric field distortions, enabling more precise control of droplet deposition in electrohydrodynamic 3D printing.

Findings

Droplet flight deviates due to electric field asymmetry.

Product of droplet size and charge governs droplet kinematics.

Optimized printing paths improve complex geometry fabrication.

Abstract

Electrohydrodynamic 3D printing is an additive manufacturing technique with enormous potential in plasmonics, microelectronics, and sensing applications, thanks to its broad materials palette, high voxel deposition rate, and compatibility with various substrates. However, the electric field used to deposit material is concentrated at the depositing structure resulting in the focusing of the charged droplets and geometry-dependent landing positions, which complicates the fabrication of complex 3D shapes. The low level of concordance between design and printout seriously impedes the development of electrohydrodynamic 3D printing and rationalizes the simplicity of the designs reported so far. In this work, we break the electric field centrosymmetry to study the resulting deviation in the flight trajectory of the droplets. Comparison of experimental outcomes with predictions of an FEM model provides new insights into the droplet characteristics and unveils how the product of droplet size and charge uniquely governs its kinematics. From these insights, we develop reliable predictions of the jet trajectory and allow the computation of optimized printing paths counterbalancing the electric field distortion, thereby enabling the fabrication of geometries with unprecedented complexity.