The design challenge in printing devices and circuits: Influence of the orientation of print patterns in inkjet-printed electronics

• The influence of the print pattern orientation in inkjet printing is studied.
• The print pattern orientation causes morphological and functional variations in the printed deposits.
• Designing of devices for inkjet-printed electronics requires a detailed understanding about the inkjet process and all influencing parameters.

We present a morphological and electrical analysis of inkjet-printed two-dimensional films of silver nanoparticle inks arranged at different orientation to the raster-scan-based printing process. Different parameters causing morphological and functional irregularities in the inkjet-deposited films as a function of their orientation to the printing process are introduced in detail and the relevance for the field of printed electronics is discussed. Researchers have demonstrated the manufacturing of various microelectronic devices using inkjet printing. Nearly all of the devices are based on simple rectilinear geometries. Usually, these geometries have a preferential orientation that is exactly (i) along the deposition process or exactly (ii) perpendicular to the deposition process. So far, it was assumed that the geometrical and functional characteristics are identically for the both cases. However, we show empirically that this is not the case and help to understand the conditions that lead to the differences.

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