Multi-Material Ink-Jet Printed Microsystems

We proposed a novel approach utilizing a multi-material ink-jet additive manufacturing electronics (AME) system to fabricate controllable resistors with tunable sheet resistance and thermal coefficient of resistance properties. We developed a method for achieving tunable electrical properties by mixing conductive and dielectric inks through co-printing and mixing on a substrate. By customizing the AME process parameters and curing sequences, we successfully fabricated high-resistance traces with variations in the plane width of the Conductive Ink (CI) and margins of the uncured Dielectric Ink (DI). These adjustments resulted in sheet resistance ranging from 0.372 to 1.044 Ω/□ at the room temperature, compared to only 0.013–0.033 Ω/□ with the standard printing workflow. This enabled the demonstration of tunability in the temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), spanning a range of 429-1301 ppm/°C for printed temperature sensors.