SLA 3-D Printed Arrays of Miniaturized, Internally Fed, Polymer Electrospray Emitters

This paper reports the design, fabrication, and characterization of arrays of miniaturized, internally fed, polymer electrospray emitters fabricated with stereolithography. The freeform additive manufacturing process used to make the devices has associated two orders of magnitude reduction in the fabrication cost per device and fabrication time (from thousands of dollars to tens of dollars, and from months to hours, respectively) and a two orders of magnitude reduction in the cost of the manufacturing infrastructure (from millions of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars) compared with a silicon MEMS multiplexed electrospray source. The 3-D printed devices include features not easily attainable with other microfabrication methods, e.g., tapered channels and threaded holes. Through the optimization of the fabrication process 10-mm tall, isolated, straight, solid columns with diameter as small as 300 μm, and 12-mm long, straight tubes with inner diameter as small as 400 μm and wall thickness as small as 150 μm were demonstrated. Arrays with as many as 236 internally fed electrospray emitters (236 emitters in 1 cm²) were made, i.e., a twofold increase in emitter density and a sixfold increase in array size compared with the best reported values from multiplexed, internally fed, electrospray sources made of polymer. The characterization of devices with a different array size suggests a uniform emitter operation.