The Effect of Substrate on Continuous Electrohydrodynamic Printing

In this paper, the behavior of ejected jet is studied at three different substrates (conductive, semiconductor and dielectric) in continuous electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing mode. Because the polarization charges will accumulate at the surface of the substrate in a short nozzle-to-collector distance, one can observe that the different flight behavior in the space. Results show that the substrate has little effect on the threshold voltage and the relaxation time of the substrate can be used to indicate the behavior of the jet. When the lifetime of the jet is larger than the relaxation time of the substrate, the jet can be deposited on the substrate regularly. Based on this guideline, a designed parallel lines and grid pattern are fabricated with several micrometers on a silicon substrate. These show that the designed pattern could be fabricated in a controllable jet. In the future, this method is able to be utilized to fabricate the mirco/nano-devices.