Electrohydrodynamic Printing for Advanced Micro/Nanomanufacturing: Current Progresses, Opportunities, and Challenges

The paper provides an overview of high-resolution electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing processes for general applications in high-precision micro/nanoscale fabrication and manufacturing. Compared with other printing approaches, EHD printing offers many unique advantages and opportunities in the printing resolution, tunable printing modes, and wide material applicability, which has been successfully applied in numerous applications that include additive manufacturing, printed electronics, biomedical sensors and devices, and optical and photonic devices. In this review, the EHDs-based printing mechanism and the resulting printing modes are described, from which various EHD printing processes were developed. The material applicability and ink printability are discussed to establish the critical factors of the printable inks in EHD printing. A number of EHD printing processes and printing systems that are suitable for micro/nanomanufacturing applications are described in this paper. The recent progresses, opportunities, and challenges of EHD printing are reviewed for a range of potential application areas.