Inkjet printing of polymer microspheres

In its history, the inkjet technology turned out as a reliable, fast and flexible additive deposition technique for the production of microstructures from a colloidal suspension. Upon evaporation of the solvent from the sessile drops, the polymer microsphere particles tend to undergo a selforganization related to the individual surface properties. In this paper we report on printing monodisperse polystyrene microsphere particles suspended in an aqueous environment using a Dimatix DMP 2831 drop-on-demand (DOD) piezo inkjet materials printer on glass substrates with variable surface energy. Our approach focuses on the effects of the self-assembly process under variation of the solids content of the inks and the surface energy of the substrate by physical and chemical means.