Plasma Jet Printing for Printed Electronics

The Internet of Things era has been fueling the need for functional printed and flexible devices, and a variety of printing technologies address this need. State of the art inkjet and aerosol jet techniques deliver ink nanoparticles to the substrate and then require an annealing or curing step in order to obtain consolidated thin films needed for device fabrication. Thus, these are three-step processes including pre-treatment of substrate, printing and curing, requiring multiple pieces of equipment. Plasma jet printing, in contrast, accomplishes all the needed steps in the printer itself using the plasma, and the energetic environment of the plasma results in a “self-sintering” effect, providing a consolidated film upon printing. A variety of metals, oxides, carbon nanomaterials, electromagnetic interference shields, antennas and others have been successfully printed using plasma printing and an overview of the plasma printing, equipment and demonstrated results is presented here.