In-situ metrology for electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing towards micro/nano scale hybrid manufacturing

This thesis lays the groundwork for a hybrid manufacturing system, combining laser ablation and electrohydrodynamic inkjet (e-jet) printing. A thorough review of laser ablation of polymers is provided. Trends and issues that arise during the process are noted and information essential to the choice of laser and polymer material is provided. In addition, methods were proposed for the in-process measurement of the E-jet printing system. The first method utilized machine vision and image processing to measure micro filament sizes. These filaments could be measured in real time and later converted into a 3D reconstruction. The second measures the resulted pattern prior to removal from the printing platform. Both of these processed allow for in-process measurements to be conducted which can be used for correction or characterization of the E-jet printing process. Currently, there are no such automated processes. Lastly, the use of a simple scalar diffraction setup to measure particle droplets was investigated. The issues which occurred during this investigation are discussed