Aerosol Jet Printing shows a lot of promise for the future of printable electronics. It is compatible with a wide range of materials and can be printed on nearly any type of surface features because of its 3–5 mm standoff distance from the substrate. However, nearly all materials printed require some form of post-sintering processing to reduce the electrical resistance. Many companies develop these materials, but only provide a narrow range of post processing results to demonstrate the achievable conductivity values. In this paper, a design of experiment (DOE) is presented that demonstrates a way to characterize any material for Aerosol Jet Printing during and after post sintering processing by measuring conductivity with different time and temperature values. From these results, a linear regression model can be made to develop an equation that predicts conductivity at a given time-temperature value. This paper applies this method to Clariant Ag ink and sinters silver pads in an oven. A linear regression model is successfully developed that fits the data very well. From this model, an equation is derived to predict the conductivity of the Clariant Ag ink for any time-temperature value. Although only demonstrated with an oven and one type of ink, this method of experimentation and model development can be done with any material and any post processing method.
more »
« less
CHARACTERIZING THE CONDUCTIVITY OF AEROSOL JET PRINTED SILVER TRACES ON GLASS USING INTENSE PULSED LIGHT (IPL)
Aerosol Jet Printing is a novel micron-scale printing technology capable of handling a variety of materials due to a large print material viscosity range and high substrate standoff distance of 3-5 mm. To finalize the properties of printed materials, a form of post-processing is often required. A current widely applicable post-processing technique exists in traditional oven curing. However, oven curing greatly restricts the viable substrates as well as curing time. Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) offers the chance to greatly expand this substrate variety and decrease curing time. However, limited models currently exist to relate the finished material properties to the unique settings of current IPL technology. In this paper, an experiment is developed through a General Full Factorial Design of Experiments (DOE) model to characterize conductivity of Ag ink using IPL as a post processing technique. This is conducted through Novacentrix Ag ink (JSA426) by 3x3 mm Van der Pauw sensor pads cured using IPL. Sample pads were generated in triplicate over a range of Energy Levels, Counts and Durations for IPL and the resulting conductivity measured. The collected conductivity data was then analyzed using ANOVA to determine the significant interactions. From this, a regression model is developed to predict the conductivity for any Energy-Count-Duration value. The methods employed are applicable to any post-processing technique, and further optimization of the model is proposed for future work.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1950137
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10322713
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Manufacturing science and engineering
- ISSN:
- 1096-6668
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Additively manufactured electronics (AMEs), also known as printed electronics, are becoming increasingly important for the anticipated Internet of Things (IoT). This requires manufacturing technologies that allow the integration of various pure functional materials and devices onto different flexible and rigid surfaces. However, the current ink-based technologies suffer from complex and expensive ink formulation, ink-associated contaminations (additives/solvents), and limited sources of printing materials. Thus, printing contamination-free and multimaterial structures and devices is challenging. Here, a multimaterial additive nanomanufacturing (M-ANM) technique utilizing directed laser deposition at the nano and microscale is demonstrated, allowing the printing of lateral and vertical hybrid structures and devices. This M-ANM technique involves pulsed laser ablation of solid targets placed on a target carousel inside the printer head for in-situ generation of contamination-free nanoparticles, which are then guided via a carrier gas toward the nozzle and onto the surface of the substrate, where they are sintered and printed in real-time by a second laser. The target carousel brings a particular target in engagement with the ablation laser beam in predetermined sequences to print multiple materials, including metals, semiconductors, and insulators, in a single process. Using this M-ANM technique, various multimaterial devices such as silver/zinc oxide (Ag/ZnO) photodetector and hybrid silver/aluminum oxide (Ag/Al2O3) circuits are printed and characterized. The quality and versatility of our M-ANM technique offer a potential manufacturing option for emerging IoT.more » « less
-
more » « less
Abstract Poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is a promising material because of its favorable electrical and mechanical properties, stability in ambient environments, and biocompatibility. It finds broad application in energy storage, flexible electronics, and bioelectronics. Additive manufacturing opens a plethora of new avenues to form and shape PEDOT:PSS, allowing for the rapid construction of customized geometries. However, there are difficulties in printing PEDOT:PSS while maintaining its attractive properties. A 3D printing method for PEDOT:PSS using a room‐temperature coagulation bath‐based direct ink writing technique is reported. This technique enables fabrication of PEDOT:PSS into parts that are of high resolution and high conductivity, while maintaining stable electrochemical properties. The coagulation bath can be further modified to improve the mechanical properties of the resultant printed part via a one‐step reaction. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a simple post‐processing step allows the printed electrodes to strongly adhere to several substrates under aqueous conditions, broadening their use in bioelectronics. Employing 3D printing of PEDOT:PSS, a cortex‐wide neural interface is fabricated, and intracranial electrical stimulation and simultaneous optical monitoring of mice brain activity with wide field calcium imaging are demonstrated. This reported 3D‐printing technique eliminates the need for cumbersome experimental setups while offering desired material properties.
-
more » « less
Neurotransmitters are small molecules involved in neuronal signaling and can also serve as stress biomarkers.1Their abnormal levels have been also proposed to be indicative of several neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington disease, among others. Hence, measuring their levels is highly important for early diagnosis, therapy, and disease prognosis. In this work, we investigate facile functionalization methods to tune and enhance sensitivity of printed graphene sensors to neurotransmitters. Sensors based on direct laser scribing and screen-printed graphene ink are studied. These printing methods offer ease of prototyping and scalable fabrication at low cost.
The effect of functionalization of laser induced graphene (LIG) by electrodeposition and solution-based deposition of TMDs (molybdenum disulfide2and tungsten disulfide) and metal nanoparticles is studied. For different processing methods, electrochemical characteristics (such as electrochemically active surface area: ECSA and heterogenous electron transfer rate: k0) are extracted and correlated to surface chemistry and defect density obtained respectively using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy. These functionalization methods are observed to directly impact the sensitivity and limit of detection (LOD) of the graphene sensors for the studied neurotransmitters. For example, as compared to bare LIG, it is observed that electrodeposition of MoS2on LIG improves ECSA by 3 times and k0by 1.5 times.3Electrodeposition of MoS2also significantly reduces LOD of serotonin and dopamine in saliva, enabling detection of their physiologically relevant concentrations (in pM-nM range). In addition, chemical treatment of LIG sensors is carried out in the form of acetic acid treatment. Acetic acid treatment has been shown previously to improve C-C bonds improving the conductivity of LIG sensors.4In our work, in particular, acetic acid treatment leads to larger improvement of LOD of norepinephrine compared to MoS2electrodeposition.
In addition, we investigate the effect of plasma treatment to tune the sensor response by modifying the defect density and chemistry. For example, we find that oxygen plasma treatment of screen-printed graphene ink greatly improves LOD of norepinephrine up to three orders of magnitude, which may be attributed to the increased defects and oxygen functional groups on the surface as evident by XPS measurements. Defects are known to play a key role in enhancing the sensitivity of 2D materials to surface interactions, and have been explored in tuning/enhancing the sensor sensitivity.5Building on our previous work,3we apply a custom machine learning-based data processing method to further improve that sensitivity and LOD, and also to automatically benchmark different molecule-material pairs.
Future work includes expanding the plasma chemistry and conditions, studying the effect of precursor mixture in laser-induced solution-based functionalization, and understanding the interplay between molecule-material system. Work is also underway to improve the machine learning model by using nonlinear learning models such as neural networks to improve the sensor sensitivity, selectivity, and robustness.
References A. J. Steckl, P. Ray, (2018), doi:10.1021/acssensors.8b00726.
Y. Lei, D. Butler, M. C. Lucking, F. Zhang, T. Xia, K. Fujisawa, T. Granzier-Nakajima, R. Cruz-Silva, M. Endo, H. Terrones, M. Terrones, A. Ebrahimi,
Sci. Adv. 6 , 4250–4257 (2020).V. Kammarchedu, D. Butler, A. Ebrahimi,
Anal. Chim. Acta .1232 , 340447 (2022).H. Yoon, J. Nah, H. Kim, S. Ko, M. Sharifuzzaman, S. C. Barman, X. Xuan, J. Kim, J. Y. Park,
Sensors Actuators B Chem. 311 , 127866 (2020).T. Wu, A. Alharbi, R. Kiani, D. Shahrjerdi,
Adv. Mater. 31 , 1–12 (2019). -
more » « less
Abstract This paper describes the fabrication of elastomeric three‐dimensional (3D) structures starting from two‐dimensional (2D) sheets using a combination of direct‐ink printing and relaxation of strain. These structures are fabricated in a two‐step process: first, elastomeric inks are deposited as 2D structures on a stretched elastomeric sheet, and second, after curing of the elastomeric inks, relaxation of strain in the 2D sheet causes it to deform into a 3D shape. To predict bending of elastomeric objects fabricated with this technique, a simple mechanical model is developed. The strategy of using initially 2D materials to fabricate 3D structures offers four new features that complement digital fabrication techniques. (i) It provides a simple route to create shapes with complex curves, suspended features, and internal cavities. (ii) It is a faster method of fabricating some types of shapes than “conventional” 3D printing, because the features are printed in 2D. (iii) It forms surfaces that can be both smoother, and structured in a way that is not compatible with layer‐by‐layer processing. (iv) It forms structures that can be deformed reversibly after fabrication by reapplying strain. This paper demonstrates these features by fabrication of helices, structures inspired by cubes and tables, “pop‐up” structures, and soft grippers.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
