Ink-jet printing of ceramic micro-pillar arrays

This review illustrates the fabrication of different kinds of micro-pillar array structures by ink-jet printing process. So the fabrication of 1-3 piezoelectric composites and photocatalytic devices by deposition, respectively of PZT and TiO2 suspensions will be mainly reported. First, different investigations were carried out to adjust the ceramic suspensions to be compatible with ink-jet printing process. Afterwards, this study reveals how the main characteristics of the micro-pillar array structures (morphology, definition, compacity, etc.) strongly depend on the conditions of fabrication (configuration of the deposit, driving parameters of the printing head, delay between two successive layers, etc.) and on the formulation of the ceramic suspensions (ceramic loading, nature and content of binder and surfactant, etc.). Finally, sintered PZT and TiO2 micro-pillar structures were achieved with a very good definition (around 40 mu m). The study of the functional properties of the corresponding structures is in progress. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.