Electric-field-driven Jet Deposition Based
Micro-and Nano-scale 3D printing and Its
Applications
Hongbo Lan1,21

Shandong Engineering Research Center for Additive Manufacturing, Qingdao University ofTechnology, Qingdao 266520, China
2Qindao Engineering Research Center for 3D Printing, Qingdao 266520, China
E-mail: hblan99@126.com

Micro- and nano-3D printing is a new frontier in next-generation multifunctional additive
manufacturing (AM) and micro/nanofabrication technologies. A variety of micro/nano-AM
processes which include the microstereolithography, two-photon lithography,
electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing, aerosol jet printing, micro laser sintering,
electrochemical fabrication (EFAB), nanoscale offset printing, etc., have been proposed anddeveloped in recent years. This talk will present a novel micro-and nano-scale 3D printing
technique based on electric-field-driven jet deposition and its typical applications. The basic
principle of the proposed micro/nano-3D printing utilizes the single potential induced electricfield and EHD cone-jetting behavior, as well as charges self-alignment effect. Furthermore,taking into account both the printing accuracy and the printing efficiency, three novel
working modes, the micro-extrusion mode, pulsed cone-jet mode and continuous cone-jetmode, are introduced for implementing the multi-scale manufacturing of large-areamacro/micro structures with high throughput. The mechanism and law of the formation forthe proposed process are systematically investigated and revealed by combining with thetheoretical analysis, numerical simulation and experimental verification. And, many typicalapplications including the transparent electrodes, transparent conductive heater, transparent
EMI shielding, tissue engineering scaffolds, paper electronics, are provided to demonstrate
the capability and advantages of the micro/nano-scale 3D printing which involve generatinghigh resolution features for super viscosity materials, patterning on the non-conductive andnon-planar substrate, conformal printing over 3D structure or surfaces, macro/micro-scale 3D
printing. In addition, a method of mass producing large-area microstructures combining themicro/nano-scale 3D printing (fabricating the large-size microscale mold without stitching)and large-area hybrid nanoimprinting is also reported. As a result, the electric-field-driven jet
deposition based micro-and nano-scale 3D printing provides a novel and prospect solution formass producing large-area micro/nano-structures. It also offers a feasible approach forfulfilling multi-scale and multi-material 3D printing at low cost and good universality as wellas high resolution.
Reference:[1]Zhu, X.Y.; Xu, X.; Li, H.K.; “Fabricating Transparent Electrodes by Combined Electricfield-driven Fusion Direct Printing and the Liquid Bridge Transfer Method” J. Phys. D: Appl.
Phys. 2019 52 245103.
[2] Qian L.; Lan H.B., Zhang G.M; “A Theoretical Model for Predicting the Feature Size
Printed by Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printing” Applied Physics Letters. 2018 112 203505.

Figure 1. The basic principle of the micro-and nano-scale 3D printing based on electric-field-driven
jet deposition

5mm

1mm

Figure 2. Printed results: microdroplets; transparent electrodes; tissue engineering scaffolds