Autonomous Aerosol and Plasma Co-Jet Printing of Metallic Devices at Ambient Temperature

Additive manufacturing of metallic materials holds the potential to revolutionize the fabrication of functional devices unattainable via traditional methods. Despite recent advancements, printing metallic materials typically requires thermal processing at elevated temperatures to form dense structures with desired properties, which presents a major challenge for direct printing and integration with temperature-sensitive materials. Herein, a unique co-jet printing (CJP) method is reported integrating an aerosol jet and a non-thermal, atmospheric pressure plasma jet to enable concurrent aerosol deposition of metal nanoparticle inks and in situ sintering at ambient temperature. A machine learning algorithm is integrated with the CJP to perform real-time defect detection and autonomous correction, enhancing the yield of printed films with high electrical conductivity from 44% to 94%. Concurrent printing and sintering eliminate the need for post-printing processing, reducing the overall manufacturing time by multiple folds depending on product size. CJP enables direct printing of functional devices on a variety of temperature-sensitive materials including biological materials. Direct printing of hydration sensors on living plant leaves is demonstrated for long-duration monitoring of hydration level in the plant. The versatile CJP method opens tremendous opportunities to harmoniously integrate abiotic and biotic materials for emerging applications in wearable/implantable devices and biohybrid systems.