Work

Inkjet Printing of Colloidal Nanospheres: Engineering the Evaporation-Driven Self-Assembly Process to Form Defined Layer Morphologies

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: We report on inkjet printing of aqueous colloidal suspensions containing monodisperse silica and/or polystyrene nanosphere particles and a systematic study of the morphology of the deposits as a function of different parameters during inkjet printing and solvent evaporation. The colloidal suspensions act as a model ink for an understanding of layer formation processes and resulting morphologies in inkjet printing in general. We investigated the influence of the surface energy and the temperature of the substrate, the formulation of the suspensions, and the multi-pass printing aiming for layer stacks on the morphology of the deposits. We explain our findings with models of evaporation-driven self-assembly of the nanosphere particles in a liquid droplet and derive methods to direct the self-assembly processes into distinct one- and two-dimensional deposit morphologies.

Source: Nanoscale Research Letters

DOI: 10.1186/s11671-015-1065-2

Authors: Enrico Sowade, Thomas Blaudeck, Reinhard R. Baumann

Institutions: Chemnitz University of Technology, Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems

Language: English

Topic: Nanomaterials and Printing Technologies

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,186

Funders: Business Events Perth, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Seventh Framework Programme