Liquid Metal Inkjet Creates Eletronic Circuits

One of the dreams of makers the world over is to be able to print electronic circuits on more or less any surface using a desktop printer. The great promise is the possibility of having RFID circuits printed on plastic or paper packaging, LED arrays on wallpaper and even transparent circuits on glass. Or simply to rapidly prototype circuits when designing new products.

There are no shortage of conducting inks that aim to do this but they all have drawbacks of various kinds. For example, many inks have low or difficult-to-control conductivity or need to be heated to temperatures of up to 400 degrees C after they have been printed thereby limiting the materials on which they can be printed. The result is that the ability to print circuits routinely on flexible materials such as paper or plastic has remained largely a dream.

Until now. Today, Jing Liu and pals at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry in Beijing say they’ve worked out how to print electronic circuits on a wide range of materials using an inkjet printer filled with liquid metal. And they’ve demonstrated the technique on paper, plastic, glass, rubber, cotton cloth and even an ordinary leaf.

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