Dr Patrick Smith

Patrick J. Smith has been a Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield since July 2010. He holds a first class degree in Applied Chemistry, which he obtained from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1997, and which he studied for part-time whilst working as a research officer. Afterwards, he went up to Cambridge University to study the fabrication of high temperature superconductors under the guidance of David Cardwell. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 2002.

Since then his main research has been concerned with inkjet printing and rapid prototyping, with research positions in the groups of Brian Derby (University of Manchester, UK 2002 – 05), Ulrich Schubert (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, The Netherlands 2005 – 07) and Jan Korvink (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany 2007 – 10).

For the last ten years, his research has been primarily concerned with applied inkjet printing. His group at Sheffield undertakes funded research into reactive inkjet printing, controlled crystallisation and polymer printing. Other research interests are involved with drying behaviour, inkjet used in tissue engineering, printed electronics and additive manufacture.

His main research achievements to date have been concerned with the inkjet printing of silver inks. Initially, he was concerned with understanding droplet behaviour on the substrate, which led to work that successfully predicted the width of a printed line. In 2009, he and his co-researchers printed lines as narrow as 25 µm, which is currently a record. His research into the formation of inkjet printed silver features at room temperature led to a patent and the founding of NeoDec BV (http://www.neodec.nl).

 His current research areas are:

• Reactive inkjet printing – combining synthesis and patterning steps with the aim of reducing costs and increasing performance for a range of applications
• Solution processing of inorganic and hybrid materials for electronics using inkjet printing
• Rapid prototyping and additive manufacture – allowing the visualisation of new designs by printing 3D models
• Printable electronics
• Surface science – understanding how droplets behave on the substrate in order to obtain better performance
• Controlled crystallisation

Contact Dr Patrick Smith

Cohort 1 (18 months)