An economic and concise method to solve nozzle clogging issue during electro hydrodynamic printing

Abstract

Electro hydrodynamic (EHD) printing is a promising technique for alternative fabrication of high resolution micro- and nano-structures without employment of any molds or photo-masks. However, a major problem, nozzle clogging, often occurs when the viscosity of the inks or the size of ink particles is raised. We proposed in this work an economic and concise method to solve the nozzle clogging issue. A PDMS-glass disassembled nozzle was designed and fabricated, which can be bonded under pressure and separated after pressure release. The influence of substrate material, bonding pressure, aspect ratio and channel-size on the dimension loss of PDMS micro-channel was investigated by an established simulation method. It is expected that the proposed method has great potential for fabrication of reusable nozzle without the clogging problem.