Pyro-EHD ink-jet printing for direct functionalization of 3D lab-on-chip devices

A challenging request in the fabrication of microfluidics and biomedical microsystems is a flexible ink-jet printing for breaking the rigidity of classical lithography. A pyroelectric-EHD system is presented. The system has proved challenging spatial resolution down to nanoscale, printing of high ordered patterns, capability of dispensing bio-ink as DNA and protein array for biosensing fabrication, single cells printing and direct printing of nanoparticles. With the method proposed high viscous polymers could be easily printed at high resolution in 2D or in 3D configuration. The pyro-EHD process has been proved for the fabrication of biodegradable microneedles for trasndermal drug delivery and 3D optical waveguides.