Fabrication of Poly(methyl methacrylate) Nozzles for Electrohydrodynamic Printing

Abstract

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing enables rapid prototyping high-resolution and low-cost lines with width of micrometer or even nanometer. However, EHD printing always suffers from nozzle clogging when the nozzle inner-diameter decrease to micro-scale. Thus fabrication of low cost nozzles becomes significantly important. In this work, 50 μm wide and 12.5 μm deep PMMA (Polymethyl Methacrylate) nozzles were fabricated without using traditional expensive glass capillary pulling approach. To replicate PMMA nozzle with high precision, the embossing condition was optimized according to replication precision, the deformation rate, and maximum stress. To nearly fully bond PMMA nozzle with intact PMMA microchannel, the bonding condition was optimized according the bonding rate and dimension loss of PMMA microchannel. The availability of the fabricated PMMA nozzle was finally verified by EHD printing experiments.