Interaction of an Accelerated Liquid Interface with a Mesh for Satellite Free Droplet Ejection

We demonstrate a drop on demand printing technique which uses interaction of an accelerated liquid interface with a mesh to eject satellite free droplets. The method utilizes a patterned wettability surface attached to a stage to create a precise interface. The stage is actuated using a solenoid. Using a captive interface our technique removes the need for ink recycling, which is an issue with drop impact printing that uses a free-falling droplet. In our current experiments we have generated droplets over a wide range of sizes ranging from 110 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mu\mathrm{m}$</tex> to 670 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mu\mathrm{m}$</tex>. In contrast to drop impact printing, this technique allows better control of the mesh-interface interaction through the modification of stage velocity and the gap between the stage and the mesh. This allows us to generate droplets of viscosities up to 58 mPas which is approximately 2x better than drop impact printing.