Inkjet Printing Technology for Advanced Material Fabrication

Inkjet printing has evolved from desktop publishing into a powerful additive manufacturing platform for advanced materials. By precisely depositing picolitre‐scale droplets onto diverse substrates, it enables mask‐free, digitally controlled patterning with submicrometre resolution. Two principal actuation modes—thermal and piezoelectric—govern drop generation, while rheological tuning of ink viscosity and surface tension ensures stable jetting and defined feature formation. The interplay of inertial, viscous and capillary forces, encapsulated by dimensionless numbers such as the Ohnesorge and Weber numbers, dictates print fidelity and droplet behaviour. Advances in ink formulation now embrace functional nanoparticles, polymers and hybrid chemistries, allowing the creation of photonic structures, conductive traces, ceramic microcomponents and even biological scaffolds in a single process. Key challenges include preventing satellite droplets, controlling the drying‐induced coffee‐ring effect, managing substrate wettability and ensuring multilayer registration. Through continuous improvements in printhead design, waveform engineering and multi-material integration, inkjet printing is shaping next-generation photonic filters, flexible electronics, energy devices and bespoke biomedical platforms. Its inherent scalability—from rapid prototyping of microdevices to roll-to-roll fabrication of large‐area coatings—underscores its global significance in low-cost, high-throughput manufacturing of bespoke functional materials.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have shown that fully inkjet-printed optical interference filters can achieve nanometre-scale layer control in ambient conditions. By formulating bespoke inks and optimising droplet spacing, longpass, shortpass, bandpass and dichroic filters have been realised at centimetre scales, with lateral patterning and upscaling to A4 dimensions demonstrated without lithographic masks. This work underlines the potential for rapid prototyping of bespoke photonic devices.

In parallel, computational and experimental analyses of piezoelectric droplet formation have clarified how nozzle wettability and ink surface tension govern breakup dynamics. Lattice Boltzmann simulations combined with high-speed imaging reveal that hydrophilic nozzle coatings and high-surface-tension inks accelerate droplet pinch-off and enhance velocity, offering guidelines for improved printhead design and ink selection that elevate print quality and throughput.

Inkjet Printing Technology for Advanced Material Fabrication publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in inkjet printing technology for advanced material fabrication across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Ohnesorge number (Oh): Dimensionless ratio of viscous forces to inertial and surface tension forces, governing droplet formation and stability.
Weber number (We): Dimensionless ratio of inertial to surface tension forces in a fluid jet, indicating propensity for drop breakup.
Piezoelectric drop‐on‐demand: Printing mode where a piezoelectric actuator generates controlled pressure pulses to eject individual droplets.
Satellite droplet: Secondary, unintended droplet that forms alongside the primary droplet, often compromising print resolution.
Coffee-ring effect: Ring‐shaped deposition pattern formed by differential evaporation across a drying droplet, leading to non-uniform material distribution.
Rheology: Study of fluid deformation and flow behaviour, critical for designing inks with appropriate viscosity and surface tension for stable jetting.

References

1. Experimental study of the parameters for stable drop-on-demand inkjet performance. Physics of Fluids (2019).
2. Inkjet-printed optical interference filters. Nature Communications (2024).
3. The roles of wettability and surface tension in droplet formation during inkjet printing. Scientific Reports (2017).
4. Piezoelectric Drop-on-Demand Inkjet Printing with Ultra-High Droplet Velocity. Research (2023).
5. Additive Manufacture of Ceramics Components by Inkjet Printing. Engineering (2015).
6. Machine learning based data driven inkjet printed electronics: jetting prediction for novel inks. Flexible and Printed Electronics (2022).