Enhanced Responsivity, Accuracy, and Stability of Aerosol Jet Printing via Mechanical Switching Valve Assisted Internal Shuttering

TL;DR

A new mechanical valve system improves aerosol jet printing by reducing delays and increasing accuracy and stability.

Contribution

A mechanical switching valve system is introduced to eliminate jet relaxation and ON-OFF delay in aerosol jet printing.

Findings

Jet relaxation time is reduced from >35 seconds to zero using the mechanical switching valve.

Printing accuracy and stability are improved with parameter-independent characteristics.

Short-line arrays printed at frequencies up to 50 Hz show stable high-responsivity control.

Abstract

Aerosol jet printing (AJP) is a promising direct writing (DW) technology based on the gas‐driven aerosol. However, the pressure within printhead is hard to be controlled in real time, leading to obvious jet relaxation phenomenon during AJP, which is the critical determinant affecting dimensional accuracy and conformity of printed patterns. In this work, a shuttering system based on an internal mechanical switching valve with special flow channels is proposed to modulate the pressure distribution within printhead, thereby controlling the aerosol jet stream's flow direction in real time to enable faster ON‐OFF responsivity and higher printing accuracy. By designing the flow channel geometry of valve, the pressure is maintained constant during ON‐OFF switching, fundamentally eliminating jet relaxation time from > 35 s, improving morphological uniformity along entire printed lines, permitting parameter‐independent characteristics. With this strategy, the ON‐OFF delay due to the dimensions of the two dead zones in AJP system is eliminated by precompensation. Moreover, the stability and universality of this approach are analyzed by repeatedly printing short‐line arrays at ON‐OFF frequency F = 0.2–50 Hz, aligned endpoints demonstrate the stable high‐responsivity ON‐OFF control characteristics, which confirms great application prospects of this strategy in high‐accuracy manufacturing of complex functional patterns.

This work demonstrates ultra‐high ON‐OFF responsivity of AJP by mechanical switching valve assisted shuttering. The jet relaxation and ON‐OFF delay are substantially eliminated from greater than 35 s, maintaining patterning quality independent of the variations of printing parameters, permitting excellent process stability and universality. This leads to significant improvement in manufacturing accuracy of AJP for complex functional devices.

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