Cross-talk effect in electrostatic based capillary array nozzles

Electrohydrodynamic printing is a promising technique for printed electronics application. Most researchers working in this field are using a single nozzle configuration. However, for large area printing a multi-nozzle setup will he required for time and cost effective process. In this paper the influence of electric field and flow-rate on jetting angle on multi-nozzle array has been investigated experimentally. A three nozzle setup has been used in a linear array by using glass capillary as a nozzle with independent voltage applied on each nozzle and independent ink supply. The experiments are performed by changing the nozzle to nozzle gap and the effect on the jetting angle has been investigated. It has been observed that by increasing the applied voltage the jetting angle also increases at fixed flow-rate. In case of increasing the flow-rate, the jetting angle first increases with increase in flow-rate, but as the flow-rate increases at certain level the jetting angle decreases; moreover, at a high flow-rate the cone-jet length starts increasing. Numerical simulation has been performed to have a better understanding of the electric-field with respect to jetting angles. The influence of one nozzle on another nozzle is also investigated by operating the nozzle independently by using different operating cases. The cross-talk effect is also minimized by reducing the nozzle diameter. At 250 mu m nozzle diameter the cross-talk effect was negligible for 5 mm nozzle-to-nozzle gap. This study will help in better understanding of the interaction between different nozzles in multi-nozzle cases and better design of the multi-nozzle system by minimizing the effects of adjacent nozzles for multi-nozzle electrohydrodynamic printing system.