How To Do SHEATH GAS-ASSISTED ELECTROHYDRODYNAMIC DIRECT WRITING

To further improve the deposition behavior, a core-shell-shaped spinneret has been designed and in this design a sheath gas goes out from the peripheral channel to travel around the jet. The sheath gas provides an additional stretching and focusing force on the ejecting jet, which is beneficial to overcoming interference from the surrounding environment and gaining precise micropatterns. He et al. utilized sheath gas to fabricate micro/nanostructures under a lower applied voltage. With the help of the stretching force stemming from the sheath gas, the initiation voltage and sustaining voltage decrease obviously. Low applied voltage is helpful to restrain the instability of the printing process and promote the integration fabrication of micro/nanodevices. The average diameter of the micro/nanostructure decreases from 21.58 mm to 505.58 nm when the assisted gas pressure increases to 50 kPa. In addition, based on the same setup, Zheng et al. investigated the patterned deposition behavior of a charged jet. With the help of a sheath gas, the surrounding interference can be weakened and the charged jet can be free from the influence of the microstructures. Fig. 9.16 shows that precise complex micropatterns such as parallel lines and grids can be direct written with position precision to less than 5 mm.

How To Make Micro/nanofibrous Structures Direct Written On An Insulating Substrate

As a mass of charge accumulates on the deposited nanofiber, it is difficult to achieve patterned deposition on the insulating substrate. Zheng et al. demonstrated direct writing of orderly micro/nanofibrous structures on a flexible insulating polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate utilizing an AC electrical field. The charge transfer characteristics in the jet are changed and the Coulomb repulsive force from the residual charges on the deposited structure is reduced with the help of the applied AC voltage, as shown in Fig. 9.11A and B. Thus a stable jet can be built up and orderly structures, as shown in Fig. 9.11C, can be collected on the PET substrate. From the experimental results, the minimum motion velocity of substrate required to direct write a straight line is 700 mm/s and the line widths of direct-written fibrous structures are in the range of 10-40 μm.