Effect of contact angle and drop spacing on the bulging frequency of inkjet-printed silver lines on FC-coated glass

Abstract

The morphologies of inkjet-printed narrow silver lines on fluorocarbon film-coated glass substrates were measured with varying contact angles and drop spacing to study the actual stability of line printing by using a practical inkjet system. From a practical stability point of view, three types of the lines were observed: stable, unstable, and meta-stable. The stable lines were free from any bulging or breaking; the unstable lines had repetitive and periodic instabilities; and the meta-stable lines had no repetitive instability but had irregular bulges that appear sparsely. Unstable line printing resulted from either the dynamic or static instability of bead flow, which arose when the pressure-driven bead flow was too large or too small compared with droplet deposition rate, respectively. Whether the printing would be stable or meta-stable was determined by the anti-bulging stability of the flow against other disturbances. The anti-bulging stability increased when the bead flow rate was balanced with the printing rate, whereas it decreased for the present system when the flow-balance became sensitive to drop spacing.