Available on-demand - F.SF05.05.08
Electrohydrodynamic Redox 3D Printing—Broadening the Materials Range for Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing at the Submicron Scale
Alain Reiser1,Lukas Koch1,Maxence Menétrey1,Mirco Nydegger1,Ralph Spolenak1
ETH Zurich1
Show Abstract
Many emerging applications in microscale engineering require the fabrication of three-dimensional architectures in inorganic materials. Small-scale additive manufacturing (AM) aspires to provide access to these geometries with feature sizes in the micro- and submicrometer range. Yet, the synthesis of device-grade inorganic materials is still a challenge for AM [1] – a major handicap for its incorporation in advanced micro- and nanofabrication processes.
Here, we present our latest advances in electrohydrodynamic redox printing (EHD-RP), focusing on the broadening of the materials range and the optimization of the deposited microstructure. EHD-RP has previously been shown to enable the direct, ink-free fabrication of polycrystalline multi-metal 3D structures with a resolution of 250 nm and a feature size of ≈100 nm [2]. The electrochemical concept can result in excellent as-printed materials quality printed at speeds that outperform alternative electrochemical techniques by one order of magnitude. Additionally, as a most unique feature, EHD-RP has demonstrated nanoscale multi-metal printing with unprecedented detail. Yet, until now, the materials available to EHD-RP have been limited to copper, silver, and gold.
In this talk, we will discuss our latest findings on microstructure optimization in copper. Further, we will present our efforts to expand the printable materials palette to different metals, including alloys and magnetic metals, as well as semiconductors and insulators. We will show that the method is compatible with different sources of ions (sacrificial anodes and salt solutions) and will discuss the role of the solvent. The results present a further step towards the additive deposition of inorganic materials of high quality by microscale AM.
[1] Reiser, A., Koch, L., Dunn, K. A., Matsuura, T., Iwata, F., Fogel, O., Kotler, Z., Zhou, N., Charipar, K., Piqué, A., Rohner, P., Poulikakos, D., Lee, S., Seol, S. K., Utke, I., Nisselroy, C., Zambelli, T., Wheeler, J. M., Spolenak, R., Metals by Micro-Scale Additive Manufacturing: Comparison of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties. Adv. Funct. Mater. 1910491, 1910491 (2020).
[2] Reiser, A., Lindén, M., Rohner, P., Marchand, A., Galinski, H., Sologubenko, A. S., Wheeler, J. M., Zenobi, R., Poulikakos, D., Spolenak, R., Multi-metal electrohydrodynamic redox 3D printing at the submicron scale. Nat. Commun. 10, 1853 (2019).
[3] Reiser, A., Hirt, L., Spolenak, R. & Zambelli, T. Additive Manufacturing of Metal Structures at the Micrometer Scale. Adv. Mater. 29, 1604211 (2017).