ELECTROFOCUSING NOZZLE FOR DEPOSITION OF CHARGED AEROSOLS Russian patent published in 2024 - IPC B82B3/00 B03C3/01 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: electrofocusing nozzle for printing with charged nanoparticles can be used to reduce the width of the printed line formed when using additive technologies for making micro- and nanostructures. Such reduction of width is necessary for creation of arrays of grids of electrodes for LED-panels, optoelectronic devices, transparent heaters, 3D-interconnections and optical metamaterials. Method is based on suppression of Brownian motion of nanoparticles due to effect of electrostatic focusing of flow of charged particles in deflecting field. When supplying to the input group containing the perforated concentrating chamber, the potential of the same sign as the charge of the used nanoparticles, the latter, flying into the chamber, are deflected by the formed field and are focused in the centre of the chamber along its axis, while excess carrier gas and uncharged particles are discharged into specialized holes. After passing through the concentrating chamber, the nanoparticles fall through the dielectric ring gasket into the collecting part of the nozzle, which is also at a repulsive potential. This potential creates a funnel-shaped field inside the nozzle cone, which enables to focus the particle flow and direct it along the centre of the nozzle axis, suppressing the Brownian displacement of the nanoparticles. Further, to isolate the nozzle and ensure the absence of a spark discharge between the nozzle and the substrate due to the potential difference between them, a dielectric tip is placed on the end of the nozzle, also having a protective screen to limit the ingress of uncharged particles onto the substrate, which have flown into the perforation in the concentrating chamber.

EFFECT: proposed method enables to increase the concentration of nanoparticles in the flow and additionally extract from it uncharged particles that are not amenable to electrostatic focusing.

1 cl, 3 dwg