Home 3D Printer Optomec’s Aerosol Jet 3D Printing Enables Micron-Scale Smart Structures

Optomec’s Aerosol Jet 3D Printing Enables Micron-Scale Smart Structures

3D printing company Optomec, provider of additive manufacturing systems for metals and electronics, has announced a major breakthrough in their proprietary Aerosol Jet Technology. It enables for polymer and composite structures to be printed at the micron scale with embedded electronics.

Optomec has combined their Aerosol Jet solution, being able to print fine features, with a proprietary in-situ curing capability for rapid solidification. Optomec believes that this has a significant potential to reduce not only the size but also the cost of future electronics and bio-medical products.

Mike O’Reilly, Optomec Director for Aerosol Jet Product Management, said: “This breakthrough in 3D printing technology extends additive manufacturing to the creation of micron scale, free-form polymer structures and smart devices.
He adds: ” We continue to place emphasis on innovation such as Aerosol Jet 3D micro-structure printing to address our customer’s next generation product development challenges.”

No support structures are needed to 3D print these micron-sclae structures from materials such as photopolymers and composites, making the process more economical in regards to material consumption. Moreover, these structures can also be metallised with conformal 3D conductive traces and printed functional components such as sensors or antennas. This allows for the production of functional components in a single manufacturing machine, reducing further manufacturing steps and material usage.

The resolution for lateral features can be sized down to 10 microns and for lateral and vertical builds the resolution ranges from 1 micron to 100 nanometers. According to Optomec aspect ratios of more than 100:1 have been achieved.

These 3D micro structures can also be printed onto existing components or products, among them semiconductor chips, medical devices or industrial parts.

Here you can access a white paper on Optomec’s Aerosol Jet 3D micro-structure printing.


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