Electrohydrodynamic High-Precision Printing: An Emerging Approach for Fabrication of Wearable Microsensors

In this paper, a numerical and experimental investigation of the cutting-edge electrohydrodynamic printing (EHD) method is presented. This outstanding technique allows for a highly precise and, at the same time, cost-efficient fabrication of microscaled wearable sensors aiming at the non-invasive monitoring of physiological parameters for personalized health care. Special attention regarding this additive, field-assisted approach is paid to the utilization of biocompatible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) as well as novel heat-resistant thermoset substrates for patterning of Ag nanoparticle-based sensor structures which tolerate curing temperatures >250°C. To this end, predictive energy-domain-coupled FEM simulations are combined with the level set method to optimize the printing process and to extract process parameters suitable for an excellent printing accuracy. It is demonstrated that this way a smooth transfer of patterned sensor structures towards next-generation conformable sensor devices is possible.