Electrospinning has gained much attention in recent years due to its ability to easily produce high-quality polymeric nanofibers. However, electrospinning suffers from limited production capacity and a method to readily scale up this process is needed. One obvious approach includes the use of multiple electrospinning needles operating in parallel. Nonetheless, such an implementation has remained elusive, partly due to the uneven electric field distribution resulting from the Coulombic repulsion between the charged jets and needles. In this work, the uniformization of the electric field was performed for a linear array of twenty electrospinning needles using lateral charged plates as auxiliary electrodes. The effect of the auxiliary electrodes was characterized by investigating the semi-vertical angle of the spun jets, the deposition area and diameter of the fibers, as well as the thickness of the produced membranes. Finite element simulation was also used to analyze the impact of the auxiliary electrodes on the electric field intensity below each needle. Implementing parallel lateral plates as auxiliary electrodes was shown to help achieve uniformization of the electric field, the semi-vertical angle of the spun jet, and the deposition area of the fibers for the multi-needle electrospinning process. The high-quality morphology of the polymer nanofibers obtained by this improved process was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These findings help resolve one of the primary challenges that have plagued the large-scale industrial adoption of this exciting polymer processing technique.

Lithium niobate (LiNbO${}_3$) is known for its high Curie temperature, making it an attractive candidate for high-temperature piezoelectric applications (>200 °C); however, the literature suffers from a paucity of reliable material properties data at high temperatures. This paper therefore provides a complete set of elastic and piezoelectric coefficients, as well as complex dielectric constants and the electrical conductivity, for congruent monocrystalline LiNbO${}_3$ from 25 °C to 900 °C at atmospheric pressure. An inverse approach using the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) resonance method was used to determine the materials’ coefficients and constants. Single crystal Y-cut and Z-cut samples were used to estimate the twelve coefficients defining the electromechanical coupling of LiNbO${}_3$. We employed an analytical model inversion to calculate the coefficients based on a linear superposition of nine different bulk acoustic waves (three longitudinal waves and six shear waves), in addition to considering the thermal expansion of the crystal. The results are reported and compared with those of other studies for which the literature has available values. The dominant piezoelectric stress constant was found to be $e_{15}$, which remained virtually constant between 25 °C and 600 °C; thereafter, it decreased by approximately 10% between 600 °C and 900 °C. The elastic stiffness coefficients $c_{11}^E$, $c_{12}^E$, and $c_{33}^E$ all decreased as the temperature increased. The two dielectric constants ${ϵ}_{11}^S$ and ${ϵ}_{33}^S$ increased exponentially as a function of temperature.

Lithium niobate is a promising candidate for use in high-temperature piezoelectric devices due to its high Curie temperature ($\approx$ 1483 K) and strong piezoelectric properties. However, the piezoelectric behavior has, in practice, been found to degrade at various temperatures as low as 573 K, with no satisfactory explanation available in the literature. We, therefore, studied the electrical conductivity of congruent lithium niobate single crystals in the temperature range of 293–1273 K with an 500 mV excitation at frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 MHz. An analytical model that generalizes the universal dielectric relaxation law with the Arrhenius equation was found to describe the experimental temperature and frequency dependence and helped discriminate between conduction mechanisms. Electronic conduction was found to dominate at low temperatures, leading to low overall electrical conductivity. However, at high temperatures, the overall electrical conductivity increases significantly due to ionic conduction, primarily with lithium ions (Li⁺) as charge carriers. This increase in electrical conductivity can, therefore, cause an internal short in the lithium niobate crystal, thereby reducing observable piezoelectricity. Interestingly, the temperature above which ionic conductivity dominates depends greatly on the excitation frequency: at a sufficiently high frequency, lithium niobate does not exhibit appreciable ionic conductivity at high temperature, helping explain the conflicting observations reported in the literature. These findings enable an appropriate implementation of lithium niobate to realize previously elusive high-temperature piezoelectric applications.

Piezoelectric materials reversibly deform when exposed to an electric field. This property is indispensable to modern engineering devices, enabling a wide range of sensors and actuators. However, unfortunately conventional piezoelectric materials are limited to operating temperatures of below approximately 200 °C. Lithium niobate is a promising candidate for high temperature applications (above 500 °C), as it has a high Curie temperature (1200 °C) and good piezoelectric properties. Nevertheless, degradation mechanisms occurring at elevated temperatures are not fully understood, although they are known to interfere with the piezoelectric behavior. In addition, the material properties of this technologically promising ceramic have not been adequately characterized at high temperatures, particularly when excited at high frequencies, due to the difficulty of performing such measurements. We therefore employ an electrochemical impedance spectroscopy resonance method using a novel analytical model to determine the material properties of single crystal lithium niobate over the wide frequency range of 100 kHz to 7 MHz for temperatures up to 750 °C. We find that lithium niobate retains its good piezoelectric properties over this entire frequency and temperature range and rules out suspected degradation mechanisms involving ionic conductivity or vacancy diffusion.

Printed electronic devices are attracting significant interest due to their versatility and low cost; however, quality control during manufacturing is a significant challenge, preventing the widespread adoption of this promising technology. We show that terahertz (THz) radiation can be used for the in situ inspection of printed electronic devices, as confirmed through a comparison with conventional electrical conductivity methods. Our in situ method consists of printing a simple test pattern exhibiting a distinct signature in the THz range that enables the precise characterization of the static electrical conductivities of the printed ink. We demonstrate that contactless dual-wavelength THz spectroscopy analysis, which requires only a single THz measurement, is more precise and repeatable than the conventional four-point probe conductivity measurement method. Our results open the door to a simple strategy for performing contactless quality control in real time of printed electronic devices at any stage of its production line.

Printable electronics is a promising manufacturing technology for the potential production of low-cost flexible electronic devices, ranging from displays to active wear. It is known that rapid printing of conductive ink on a flexible substrate is vulnerable to several sources of variation during the manufacturing process. However, this process is still not being subjected to a quality control method that is both non-invasive and in situ. To address this issue, we propose controlling the printing accuracy by monitoring the spatial distribution of the deposited ink using terahertz (THz) waves. The parameters studied are the printing speed of an industrial roll-to-roll press with flexography printing units and the pre-calibration compression, or expansion factor, for a pattern printed on a flexible plastic substrate. The pattern, which is carefully selected, has Babinet’s electromagnetic transmission properties in the THz frequency range. To validate our choice, we quantified the geometric variations of the printed pattern by visible microscopy and compared its accuracy using one-dimensional THz spectroscopy. Our study shows a remarkable agreement between visible microscopic observation of the printing performance and the signature of the THz transmission. Notably, under specific conditions, one-dimensional (1D) THz information from a resonant pattern can be more accurate than two-dimensional (2D) microscopy information. This result paves the way for a simple strategy for non-invasive and contactless in situ monitoring of printable electronics production.