Inkjet Printing of Functional Materials
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Inkjet Printing of
Functional Materials
Henning Sirringhaus and Tatsuya Shimoda, Guest Editors Abstract This article introduces the November 2003 issue of MRS Bulletin on Inkjet Printing of Functional Materials. The issue is devoted to the emerging non-graphic-arts uses of inkjet printing as a technique for depositing and patterning functional materials in the liquid phase onto a substrate. The articles provide an overview of a selected range of representative applications in the field of structural ceramics, polymer electronics, and protein chips, and address some of the key challenges that face the broad scientific and industrial community as it attempts to apply a mature and well-developed graphic arts printing technique to the deposition of functional materials. Keywords: functional materials, inkjet printing.
There are a growing number of applications that require the delivery of small quantities of functional materials with specific electrical, optical, chemical, biological, or structural functionalities into welldefined locations on a substrate. In many cases, these materials are most suitably processed from a liquid solution, dispersion, or melt, rather than from the vapor phase. Many functional materials, such as polymers or large biomolecules, are not amenable to vacuum deposition techniques. The need for solution processing may also be dictated by the nature and properties of the substrate; the need to distribute the materials over a large substrate area, or only to certain locations of the substrate and not to others (e.g., to induce a local chemical reaction); or simply to keep the material in a liquid environment at all times, such as for some biological applications. This issue of MRS Bulletin is devoted to the emerging non-graphic-arts uses of inkjet printing as a technique for depositing and patterning functional materials in the liquid phase. The articles provide an overview of representative applications in the field of structural ceramics, polymer electronics, and protein chips, and address some of the key challenges that face the broad scientific and industrial community as it attempts to apply a mature and well-developed graphic arts printing technique to the deposition of functional materials.
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Inkjet printing has become one of the most widespread printing techniques in the home and office desktop printing market. Advances in inkjet technology now allow the printing of full-color, high-resolution photographs. In the commercial printing arena, inkjet technology is widely used for digital proofing prior to running a print job on a press; for short-run, wide-format digital printing such as posters for outdoor advertising; and for applications that require printing onto nonpaper substrates such as rigid display boards. Inkjet printers are being developed for integration with offset presses to print customized information in magazines, such as tailored advertising. In industry, inkjet technology is the dominant technology for printing variable information such as “sell-by” dates or product
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