Acoustic Manipulation for Jetting Printing

Jetting printing is widely used in electronics, biomedicine and other advanced manufacturing fields, yet jetting trajectory divergence severely impairs its printing resolution and deposition efficiency. Here, we propose a non-contact acoustic manipulation strategy for jetting trajectory regulation based on a hemispherical ultrasonic phased array. A dual-focus acoustic field is constructed via phase modulation of the transducer elements within the array, and the acoustic radiation force generated by this field is utilized to suppress the divergent motion of in-flight droplets. The acoustic field characteristics and droplet trajectory evolution are systematically investigated through multiphysics simulations coupling flow, electric, and acoustic fields, which verify the trajectory confinement effect of the dual-focus acoustic field. Experimental validation is further conducted on a custom-built platform under five different auxiliary gas flow rate conditions, and the captured images are analyzed using an automated digital image processing program. The results show that the jetting trajectory width is consistently confined under all conditions, achieving a maximum width reduction of up to 18.96% with high reproducibility and robustness. This non-contact and non-destructive acoustic manipulation method effectively suppresses jetting trajectory divergence, and provides a novel and feasible technical solution for high-precision jetting printing applications.