Review

Integration of additive manufacturing and inkjet printed electronics: a potential route to parts with embedded multifunctionality

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, 20 Symonds St., Auckland, New Zealand
² Laboratory of Applied Inkjet Printing, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Garden Street, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4BJ, UK
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Rd, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK
⁴ Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK
⁵ Warwick Mathematics Institute, Zeeman Building, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
⁶ Centre for Complexity Science, Zeeman Building, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
⁷ Additive Manufacturing Research Group, Loughborough University, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK

^* Corresponding author: j.stringer@auckland.ac.nz

Received: 25 January 2016
Accepted: 11 April 2016

Abstract

Additive manufacturing, an umbrella term for a number of different manufacturing techniques, has attracted increasing interest recently for a number of reasons, such as the facile customisation of parts, reduced time to manufacture from initial design, and possibilities in distributed manufacturing and structural electronics. Inkjet printing is an additive manufacturing technique that is readily integrated with other manufacturing processes, eminently scalable and used extensively in printed electronics. It therefore presents itself as a good candidate for integration with other additive manufacturing techniques to enable the creation of parts with embedded electronics in a timely and cost effective manner. This review introduces some of the fundamental principles of inkjet printing; such as droplet generation, deposition, phase change and post-deposition processing. Particular focus is given to materials most relevant to incorporating structural electronics and how post-processing of these materials has been able to maintain compatibility with temperature sensitive substrates. Specific obstacles likely to be encountered in such an integration and potential strategies to address them will also be discussed.