High Throughput Aerosol Jet Printing to Operationalize High Aspect Ratio Patterning

ABSTRACT Aerosol jet printing presents opportunities for conformal, flexible, and hybrid electronics given its materials compatibility and noncontact nature. However, adoption into production environments remains challenged by complex tradeoffs between throughput, precision, and motion constraints. This is particularly relevant for high‐aspect‐ratio or 3D patterning; however, most literature investigating process optimization regards throughput considerations as secondary to resolution. This work adopts a systematic approach, pushing throughput for aerosol jet printing to identify and address technical challenges associated with ink stability and throughput‐resolution tradeoffs. A heated bubbler is implemented to mitigate ink composition drift within the atomizer, while in‐line heating reduces the effect of throughput on resolution by ∼53%. Operating at high deposition rates pushes the printing process into a liquid wetting regime driven by capillarity, leading to an atypical throughput‐resolution correlation. This knowledge, and associated process advances, enable practical operation of aerosol jet printing for high‐aspect‐ratio structures, demonstrated by printing thermal fins directly onto silicon to realize a ∼69% reduction in thermal resistance under convective cooling. By addressing mechanistic limitations to high‐deposition‐rate aerosol jet printing, this work facilitates a more practical printing process, opening pathways to address complex manufacturing challenges requiring adaptability and precision for high‐value printed electronics.