The new design is suitable for printing 3D conformal electronics onto large structures in location, and printing electronics into hard to reach places such as recesses and cavities. The patent also includes provisions for multiplexing the miniaturized print head geometry within linear arrays or custom arrangements for high-volume production scale-up.
“The miniaturized Aerosol Jet print head can be used for many applications. As a linear array using a single material, it is a means for increasing throughput with simple parallel processing for high volume applications, such as printed touch screen displays,” said Dr Mike Renn, Optomec chief technology officer.“However, the array doesn't have to be linear; custom placement of multiple print heads for a specific application is also an option.
"Looking into the future, Aerosol Jet could print different materials from each miniaturized print head in the array. In this case, Aerosol Jet Printers could produce complex multi-material, multi-layered devices such as transistors, capacitors, sensors and resistors, on a single system.”