Optomec Receives Patent for Miniaturized Aerosol Jet Print Head

The battlefields of patent litigation have been fairly quiet recently, at least in the world of additive manufacturing (AM). That seems like a positive sign for the industry as a whole, allowing companies to focus on research and development, rather than courtroom theater. During this time of peace, new patents are finding their way to approval, and while not every patent is earth-shaking, some are worth examination.

Optomec has recently received a patent for its miniaturized aerosol jet print head, titled “Miniature Aerosol Jet and Aerosol Jet Array” (patent # 8,640,975). The patent ensures exclusivity for an aerosol jet print head design that is smaller, lighter, and less expensive to manufacture than previous iterations. The patent also leaves room for Optomec to grow, including provisions for multiplexing the miniaturized print head geometry within linear arrays or custom arrangements for high-volume production scale-up.

“The miniaturized Aerosol Jet print head can be used for many applications. As a linear array using a single material, it is a means for increasing throughput with simple parallel processing for high volume applications, such as printed touch screen displays. However, the array doesn’t have to be linear; custom placement of multiple print heads for a specific application is also an option,” said Mike Renn, Optomec CEO. “Looking into the future, Aerosol Jet could print different materials from each miniaturized print head in the array. In this case, Aerosol Jet Printers could produce complex multi-material, multi-layered devices such as transistors, capacitors, sensors and resistors, on a single system.”

In general, aerosol jet printing enables direct printing of functional electronic circuitry and components onto low-temperature, non-planar substrates, without the need for masks, screens or plating. The miniaturized print head allows for printing in small areas, hard to reach areas, and offers the capability for the on-site printing of 3D conformal electronics onto large structures. In essence, the smaller print head allows for printing on a wider variety of parts, in a larger number of situations, at a lower cost.

With the ability to print features as small as 10 microns, the aerosol jet process can be used in the manufacture of any number of electronic devices, and can be combined with more standard 3D printing processes to create embedded electronics. Optomec and Stratasys have previously demonstrated the capabilities of combining AM processes to produce an entire drone wing without requiring extensive amounts of tooling.

Below you’ll find a short video demonstration of Optomec’s aerosol jet AM process.

Source: Business Wire