Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

This grant requests an inkjet system that will enable researchers at UBC to print novel electronic devices, biomaterials, and microstructures using customized inkjet printing processes. This single inkjet system will be used to print flexible electronic devices based on quantum dots, organic materials, pattern 3-dimensional tissue scaffolds for possible use in bone and skin grafts, create inkjetted microcapsules for drug delivery applications, and form hydrogel microstructures for wireless diagnostic and therapeutic devices. Compared to other patterning techniques, inkjet printing provides a very versatile and low cost microfabrication capability that has attracted significant research and industrial interest and has widely been under utilized in the past. We are requesting a commercial inkjet printing system that has 5 µm drop placement accuracy and a position repetition accuracy of 1 µm. A system including nozzles with orifices ranging from 30-60 µm in diameter will permit control of drop size for various applications. Heated nozzles allow us to deposit high viscosity fluids, as well as various biomaterials. Lateral dimensions of the fabricated structures may span two orders of magnitude, from 50 µm organic transistors, to 300 µm droplets encapsulating living cells, to 10 mm tissue scaffolds. Stage x and y-axis travel of at least 20 cm x 20 cm and z-axis travel of > 3 cm will permit us to fabricate multiple devices on a single substrate, as well as fabricate 3-dimensional structures layer by layer. UBC has recently hired several new faculty members in Electrical and Computer Engineering who have significant expertise in micro/nano systems and integration. This shared equipment will facilitate collaboration between these researchers, as well as enable a new and powerful thrust at UBC that will include significant career potential for graduate and undergraduate students trained on this equipment.