Design and Fabrication Process Optimization of Silver-Based Inkjet-Printed Microheater

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors present the fabrication of an inkjet printed silver microheater. The topic is interesting, but the manuscript cannot be accepted in its present form. The reasons are the following:

1) Section 2 is lengthy and too generic. Extensively reporting what is inkjet printing, the types of inkjet printing, … is not really relevant for the manuscript.

2) Figure 2: the picture is difficult to understand. I suggest to mark with a different color the parts that are made of metal.

3) Line 175: what is the meaning of “For the scope of this work, the drop watcher of the inkjet printer was malfunctioned”?

4) Line 185: why the temperature was limited to 35 °C? The Dimatix DMP allows a maximum temperature of 65 °C and increasing it can be beneficial for printing resolution. Did the authors explore the use of higher temperatures?

5) Line 208: I do not understand the origin of the scratches. Why the cleaning process described by the authors should produce these scratches? From this point of view, figure 7 is not really clear. It is impossible to evaluate the depth of the scratches, as the authors state in line 210. On the contrary, the reader can only barely see the scratches. Probably a profilometry would be better.

6) Figure 10 is highly overexposed and it is redundant. a) and b) are identical and the authors can simply superimpose the measurements for track width and gap size on the same image.

7) What is the thickness of the Ag layer after annealing? How is its morphology? Is it continuous and uniform? The authors should provide at least an optical microscopy image of the layer to clarify its morphology.

8) This last point is probably the most critical: the authors simulated the behavior of the microheater, they built it but they did not test the inkjet printed device! Measuring its resistance is not enough. It is vital to power the microheater and verify if it works or not in the expected way.

Finally, I suggest to revise the English of the manuscript. I’m not fully qualified to judge this aspect, but I surely see some problems.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Look my comments

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors satisfactorily addressed all my comments. In my opinion, the paper can now be published.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author,

I can not see the changes since you did not apply color change or track changes

Therefore, send it again with visiible changes

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

I apologize as I forgot to upload the version with the highlighted changes.

I attached it here.

Regards

Hanadi Al-Mohsin

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Well done