Electrostatic printing of functional toner materials for the construction of useful micro-structures
AssigneeElectrox Corporation
InventorsDietmar C. Eberlein, Robert H. Detig
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for building microstructures, comprising the steps of forming a photopolymer mask on a substrate, having a mask thickness equal to or larger than a desired height of a microstructure to be formed; forming a latent image on the photopolymer mask by exposure to light; applying an electrical charge to the photopolymer mask; developing the cavities in the mask with a functional liquid toner material whose electrical charge polarity is the same as the charge on the mask; and solidifying the functional liquid toner material into a useful microstructure.
Claims24
A method for building microstructures, comprising the steps of:
- (a) forming a patterned dielectric mask on a substrate, having a mask thickness equal to or larger than a desired height of a microstructure to be formed, and relief features formed into the mask;
- (b) applying a first spatial electrical charge to the patterned dielectric mask, to thereby form a first spatial charge pattern;
- (c) developing the first spatial charge pattern with an electrically charged first functional toner in a liquid;
- (d) applying a second spatial electrical charge to the patterned dielectric mask, to thereby form a second spatial charge pattern;
- (e) developing the second spatial charge pattern with an electrically charged first functional toner in a liquid, superposed on the developed first functional toner;
- and
- (f) processing the first and second functional toner material to form useful microstructures corresponding to the relief features of the patterned dielectric mask,
- wherein a composition of the microstructures varies in dependence on the first and second spatial charge distributions.
A method of forming a microstructure, comprising a substrate and at least two different electronically functional toner materials selectively formed into a pattern on the substrate, the microstructure comprising at least one electrically conductive element, comprising:
- (a) forming a patterned dielectric photopolymer mask on the substrate, having a mask thickness equal to or larger than a height of a microstructure to be formed, and having relief features formed into the mask;
- (b) electrostatically charging the patterned dielectric mask in at least two different patterns at different times, to thereby form at least two different spatially varying electrostatic charge patterns in dependence on at least the relief features formed into the mask;
- (c) developing the spatial charge pattern at the different times, with the at least two electronically functional toner materials, each in a respective dielectric liquid, to selectively deposit the at least two different functional toner materials in dependence on the different spatial charge patterns;
- and
- (d) processing the deposited at least two different functional toner materials to form a microstructure dependent on at least the relief features of the patterned dielectric mask.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.