Analytical investigation of aerosol jet printing

Aerosol jet printing is a technology for contactless printing of narrow line shaped features down to a width of about 20 m. Until now, process optimization was only done empirically because there was no manageable model to describe it. The process was only modeled numerically regarding Stokes and Saffman force on the aerosol particles. In this article, we introduce a simple analytical model to predict the printed line width. Experimentally, we show that the model is a valid approach for a wide range of parameters. A close look on the quality of the printed lines reveals that depending on the process parameters the droplets are distributed more or less inhomogeneously within the printed lines. We attribute this to the Saffman force, which should be taken into account for a more accurate description, especially when only little sheath gas is applied. However, the printed line width generally agrees with our model, making our model a valuable tool for process control.