Stability of inkjet printed lines at elevated substrate temperature

Abstract

Precise manipulation of line morphologies is crucial for optimizing the performance of inkjet printing. Among various techniques, the utilization of heated substrates as an active control approach stands out due to its good controllability and precision. Thus, this study experimentally investigated the characteristics of inkjet-printed lines with high-temperature substrate, employing high-concentration indium tin oxide nano-ink. The phase diagrams of line patterns were plotted in the space of dimensionless droplet spacing and printing velocity. The transition boundaries between different line modes were obtained in the cases of different substrate temperatures. Two theoretical models have been developed. First, a new printing stability model was developed, which works well for high-temperature substrates. Second, for the newly observed overlapping deposition line pattern on higher temperature substrates, a theoretical model was developed to predict the pattern transition boundaries based on the timescale of droplet interval and evaporation time of each droplet. The findings could be useful for the inkjet printing optimization by means of substrate heating techniques.