This paper presents a practical solution to directly inkjet print sharp-cornered polymer tracks on flexible surfaces that can even work as optical waveguides. Inkjet printing enables the fabrication of nearly arbitrary structures without the need of prefabricated masks. Tiny droplets are printed and then stabilized, for example, using polymerization or phase change. Structures are built up by arranging the droplets as building blocks next to and on top of each other. Resolution is defined by the size of the droplets and their solidification behavior. Neighbouring droplets will interact with each other and the substrate. At these small dimensions surface forces dominate, deforming the droplet morphology as a function of volume and perimeter shape, making it hard to stack droplets rationally. A direct solution would be to stabilize each droplet before the next one arrives, which would lead to a very slow production rate. In this paper, Theiler and colleagues report a clever multiplexing approach, by leaving out droplets so that they do not touch each other. Each droplet's shape is therefore established individually and stabilized. In another print run, the gaps are filled so that the new droplets pull themselves into their gaps, forming well-defined structures. In this way, the paper demonstrates the formation of unprecedented sharp corners, which will be interesting to a wide readership in the area of added manufacturing.

---

---

 Add Comment

You must log in to add comments.