Numerical Simulation of Micro-Fluidic Flows of the Inkjet Printing Deposition Process for Microfabrication

Droplet impinging into a cavity at micro-scale is one of important fluidic issues for microfabrications, e.g. bio-chip applications and inkjet deposition processes in the PLED panel manufacturing. The droplets generally dispensing from an inkjet head, which contains an array of nozzles, have a volume in several picoliters, while each nozzle jets the droplets into cavities with micron-meter size located on substrates. Due to measurement difficulties at micro-scale, the numerical simulation could serve as an efficient and preliminary way to evaluate the micro-sized droplet impinging behavior into a cavity. The micro-fluidic flow is computed by solving the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations through a finite volume discretization. The droplet front is predicted by a volume-of-fluid approach, in which the surface tension is modeled as a function of the fluid concentration. This paper discusses the influence of fluid properties, such as surface tension and fluid viscosity, on micro-fluidic characteristics at different jetting speeds in the deposition process via the proposed numerical approach.