Evaluation of a drop-on-demand micro-dispensing system for development of artificial fingerprints

摘要

Precision micro-dispensing is an evolving technique that has many applications in the scientific and additive manufacturing communities. Here we describe a method for dispensing viscous materials, including the oily substance found in human fingerprints, known as sebum. In this work, a dispense jet system was used to deposit known amounts of sebum onto surfaces to represent an artificial human fingerprint. Ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry (UV-Vis) and microgravimetry were used to verify the sebum mass loadings of the samples. The dispense jet was capable of printing a viscous sebum mixture as well as a less viscous solution of sebum dissolved in heptane. This method was; shown to be repeatable, and UV-Vis was found to be a simple and useful technique for verifying the mass of sebum deposited. This method could be used to prepare artificial fingerprint samples for a. variety of applications including the preparation of test materials for emerging trace detection technologies.