Inkjet Printing Controllable Footprint Lines by Regulating the Dynamic Wettability of Coalescing Ink Droplets

Abstract

Inkjet printing lines with controllable footprints is the prerequisite of fabricating high-quality patterns. However, achieving precise footprints of lines by inkjet printing is still a challenge because of the difficulty in controlling coalescences of ink droplets. Here, controllable footprint lines were fabricated by adjusting the ink droplets' dynamic wettability which is depended on the ink droplets' surface tension difference. The experimental surface tension difference of 0.77-1.50 mN/m leads to appropriate surface dynamic wettability to ink droplets and the formation of straight lines, which agrees well with the theoretical results. These results will pave the way for printing electronics and patterns.

Advanced Nanoscale Materials for Ink Manufacture

“…These colored patterns can be designed as desired by computer software programs. Furthermore, by controlling the coalescences of the colloidal latex ink droplets, Liu et al (2014) achieved high-quality patterns of photonic crystal lines, as demonstrated in Figure 5.1(d). Besides large-area flat-panel display, the printed photonic crystals can also be applied for the wide viewing-angle displays by patterning them into the dome-like structures, as shown in Figure 5.1(b).…”

“…As shown in Figure 5.1, monodispersed polymer microsphere latex inks are printed to fabricate photonic crystal patterns for the purpose of color displaying (Cui et al, 2009;Liu et al, 2014;Park et al, 2006). Figure 5.1(a) demonstrates that large-area patterned photonic crystals with multi-stopbands are fabricated by taking advantage of a commercial inkjet printer (Cui et al, 2009).…”

“…Moreover, compared with the colors of pigments and dyes, the structural colors of the photonic crystals are vivid and stable in ambient environment, which will be promising for their practical applications in advertising board and packaging and other related fields. They carefully changed the surface tension of ink droplets and the concentration of nanoparticles to avoid the formation of spherical caps and dumbbells, and finally realized the preparation of successive even lines constructed by well-assembled photonic crystals (Liu et al, 2014). By controlling the sliding three-phase contact line, Kuang et al (2014) directly fabricated photonic crystal domes with angle-independent colors by inkjet printing the PS microsphere latex inks.…”

Fabrication of Bendable Circuits on a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) Surface by Inkjet Printing Semi-Wrapped Structures

“…Inkjet printing has been recognized as one of the most promising methods to fabricate patterns on various substrates [28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35]. However, it is still a challenge to inkjet print controllable patterns on a low-adhesive PDMS surface [36,37,38], because the coalesced inkjet droplets tend to become a larger droplet due to the sliding three phase contact line with a driving force of shape relaxation [39,40,41,42]. In the traditional method, there would need to be some modifications to the PDMS surface before inkjet printing, such as oxygen plasma treatment or grafting polymer [43,44].…”

Vortex formation in coalescence of droplets with a reservoir using molecular dynamics simulations

“…18 Technical applications of droplet coalescence include inkjet-printing, 9,10 surface cleaning, 11 coating, 12,13 and microuidic devices. 14 Investigating the mechanism of spreading a liquid drop on a liquid subphase is also relevant for medical applications such as transporting drugs through the lungs tissue.…”