Feasibility of Fiber Deposition Control by Secondary Electric Fields in Near Field Electrospinning

Abstract

Product miniaturization has become a trending technology in a broad range of industries and its development is being pushed by the requirements for complexity and resolution of micromanufactured products. However, there still exists a gap in the manufacturing spectrum for complex threedimensional (3D) structure generation capabilities with micron and submicron resolution. This paper extends the nearfield electrospinning (NFES) process and develops a directwriting (DW) technology for microfiber deposition with micrometer resolution. The proposed method presented uses an auxiliary electrode to generate an electric field perpendicular to the fiber flight path. This tunable electric field grants the user realtime control of the fiber flight path, increasing the resolution of the deposited structure. The use of an auxiliary electrode ring for fiber manipulation is proposed to further improve control over the deposition process.