Aerosol jet printing is a popular digital additive manufacturing method for flexible and hybrid electronics, but it lacks sophisticated real‐time process control schemes that would enable more widespread adoption in manufacturing environments. Here, an optical measurement system is introduced to track the aerosol density upstream of the printhead. The measured optical extinction, combined with the aerosol flow rate, is directly related to deposition rate and accurately predicts functional materials properties such as the electrical resistance of printed graphene films. This real‐time system offers a compelling solution for process drift and batch‐to‐batch variability, rendering it a valuable tool for both real‐time control of aerosol jet printing and fundamental studies of the underlying process science.
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Abstract -
null (Ed.)Solution-processed graphene inks that use ethyl cellulose as a polymer stabilizer are blade-coated into large-area thin films. Following blade-coating, the graphene thin films are cured to pyrolyze the cellulosic polymer, leaving behind an sp 2 -rich amorphous carbon residue that serves as a binder in addition to facilitating charge transport between graphene flakes. Systematic charge transport measurements, including temperature-dependent Hall effect and non-contact microwave resonant cavity characterization, reveal that the resulting electrically percolating graphene thin films possess high mobility (≈160 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ), low energy gap, and thermally activated charge transport, which develop weak localization behavior at cryogenic temperatures.more » « less
