In recent years, functional ceramic devices have become smaller, thinner, more refined, and highly integrated, which makes it difficult to realize their rapid prototyping and low-cost manufacturing using traditional processing. As an emerging technology, multi-material 3D printing offers increased complexity and greater freedom in the design of functional ceramic devices because of its unique ability to directly construct arbitrary 3D parts that incorporate multiple material constituents without an intricate process or expensive tools. Here, the latest advances in multi-material 3D printing methods are reviewed, providing a comprehensive study on 3D-printable functional ceramic materials and processes for various functional ceramic devices, including capacitors, multilayer substrates, and microstrip antennas. Furthermore, the key challenges and prospects of multi-material 3D-printed functional ceramic devices are identified, and future directions are discussed.

Ultraviolet (UV) ink is a primary type of ink used in additive manufacturing with 3D inkjet printing. However, ink aggregation presents a challenge in nano-inkjet printing, affecting the stability and quality of the printing fluid and potentially leading to the clogging of nanometer-sized nozzles. This paper utilizes a Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) simulation to investigate the aggregation behavior of alumina in a blend of 1,6-Hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA) and Trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA). By analyzing the effects of solid content, polymer component ratios, and dispersant concentration on alumina aggregation, the optimal ink formulation was identified. Compared to traditional experimental methods, DPD simulations not only reduce experimental costs and time but also reveal particle aggregation mechanisms that are difficult to explore through experimental methods, providing a crucial theoretical basis for optimizing ink formulations. This study demonstrates that alumina ceramic ink achieves optimal performance with a solid content of 20%, an HDDA-to-TMPTA ratio of 4:1, and 9% oleic acid as a dispersant.

To explore the bending process and theory of the free-boundary aerodynamic film forming method for curved detectors, this study integrates practical forming structures with theoretical analysis and establishes a simulation model to investigate stress, strain, and morphological changes during bending. The analysis indicates that the shift from “projection” to “wrapping” in forming theory is due to the release of boundary degrees of freedom. The forming process can be summarized as the mold’s arc characteristics, originating from the chip’s corners, gradually replacing the chip’s rectangular characteristics along the diagonal, resulting in corresponding stress and strain changes. The “wrapping” bending theory of this method has significant advantages over traditional methods and represents a crucial direction for achieving higher curvature in the future. However, this study found that the use of film pressure can only inhibit out-of-plane deformation to a certain extent, and the buckling phenomenon will still occur when the thinner chip is bent. It prevents the use of thinner chips in the thinning–bending method, so avoiding out-of-plane deformation during the molding process is the direction that needs to be broken in the future.

Satellite droplets and macroscopic distortions, induced by the non-Newtonian rheological behavior of ceramic inks, severely compromise the 3D inkjet printing of multilayer ceramics. To address these issues, we establish a two-phase fluid dynamics model coupling the Level Set method with the Carreau fluid model. The synergistic regulation mechanisms of the piezoelectric driving waveform, initial jet velocity, and pulse width under a high-shear field are elucidated. The results demonstrate that under the excitation of a rectangular pulse with an initial jet velocity of 6 m/s and a pulse width of 10–30 µs, the inertial force, surface tension, and internal non-Newtonian viscous dissipation of the fluid reach an optimal dynamic balance. This facilitates the on-demand ejection of spherical droplets while mitigating the formation of satellite droplets. Based on this, a 10 mm × 10 mm × 2 mm multilayer alumina ceramic packaging substrate was successfully fabricated, with the maximum relative dimensional error reduced from 2.6% to 1.4%. This study provides new insights into improving the 3D inkjet printing accuracy of ceramic devices.