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US 11,890,872 B2Granted
Aerosol jet printer providing in-flight aerosol characterization
AssigneeWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
InventorsJoseph Andrews, Scott Sanders, Mario Trujillo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An aerosol jet printer producing a stream of droplets in a print jet employs direct, droplet-resolving imaging to characterize the statistics of the droplets in flight for improved control of the printed line characteristics.
Claims18
An aerosol jet printer comprising:
- a print liquid reservoir holding a liquid to be printed;
- an atomizer receiving a carrier gas and the liquid to be printed to provide an aerosol of the print liquid having print liquid droplets in the carrier gas;
- a substrate;
- a print nozzle movable with respect to the substrate and receiving the aerosol and a shield gas, the print nozzle directing the aerosol toward a substrate as a jet as enveloped by the shield gas;
- a droplet field camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate;
- and
- a control system controlling a flow of aerosol and shield gas and the movement of the print nozzle with respect to the substrate and receiving a set of images from the droplet field camera system to determine at least one of a velocity and mass distribution of print liquid droplets to permit control of at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets.
4 more elements
An aerosol jet printer comprising:
- a print liquid reservoir holding a liquid to be printed;
- an atomizer receiving a carrier gas and the liquid to be printed to provide an aerosol of the print liquid having print liquid droplets in the carrier gas;
- a substrate;
- a print nozzle movable with respect to the substrate and receiving the aerosol and a shield gas, the print nozzle directing the aerosol toward a substrate as a jet as enveloped by the shield gas;
- a droplet field camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate;
- and
- a control system controlling a flow of aerosol and shield gas and the movement of the print nozzle with respect to the substrate and receiving a set of images from the droplet field camera system to determine the distribution of print liquid droplet properties to permit control of at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets;
- further including a particle-loading camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate to determine particle loading in the droplets;
- wherein the control system determines a distribution of particle loading of droplets in the jet providing a count of droplets within a set of different particle-loading ranges to permit control of at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets;
- further including a particle-loading camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate to determine particle loading in the droplets;
- and
- wherein the control system determines a distribution of particle loading of droplets in the jet providing a count of droplets within a set of different particle-loading ranges to permit control of at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets.
9 more elements
A method of operating an aerosol jet printer of the type having:
- a print liquid reservoir holding a liquid to be printed;
- an atomizer receiving a carrier gas and the liquid to be printed to provide an aerosol of the print liquid having print liquid droplets in the carrier gas;
- a substrate;
- a print nozzle movable with respect to the substrate and receiving the aerosol and a shield gas, the print nozzle directing the aerosol toward a substrate as a jet as enveloped by the shield gas;
- and
- a droplet field camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate;
- the method including:
- (a) analyzing a set of images from the droplet field camera system to determine distribution of print liquid droplet properties;
- and
- (b) controlling at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to at least one of a mass and velocity distribution of print liquid droplets.
7 more elements
The method of claim of 10 wherein the control of at least one of carrier gas flow and shield gas flow is according to an automatic feedback control system accepting as a feedback signal statistics describing the distribution of droplet properties.
A method of operating an aerosol jet printer of the type having:
- a print liquid reservoir holding a liquid to be printed;
- an atomizer receiving a carrier gas and the liquid to be printed to provide an aerosol of the print liquid having print liquid droplets in the carrier gas;
- a substrate;
- a print nozzle movable with respect to the substrate and receiving the aerosol and a shield gas, the print nozzle directing the aerosol toward a substrate as a jet as enveloped by the shield gas;
- and
- a droplet field camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate;
- the method including:
- (a) analyzing a set of images from the droplet field camera system to determine distribution of print liquid droplet properties;
- and
- (b) controlling at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets,
- wherein the aerosol jet printer further includes a particle-loading camera system resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate to determine particle loading in the droplets;
- and
- wherein the control system determines a distribution of particle loading of droplets in the jet providing a count of droplets within a set of different particle-loading ranges to permit control of at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets.
10 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.