Ultraviolet Laser Sintering of Printed Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles for Thin-Film Thermistor via Aerosol Jet Printing Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled “applsci-1806979” dealing with laser sintering  has been reviewed. The paper has been nicely written but needs significant improvement. Please follow my comments.

 

 

1.     Please add the contribution of the paper to the abstract. It is not clear what is the novelty of this work.

2.      Please briefly introduce the process in the introduction.

3. Add some quantitative results to the abstract.
4. Provide more discussion and fundamental relations for figure 3. The colors in this figure are not meaningful. More explanation is needed.
5. Add more detail to the conclusion and explain how your findings can support the text.
6. Laser sintering has many advantages over the conventional manufacturing method which can be highlighted in your paper. Please read the following article and add to the introduction to show the experimental application of laser sintering and the advantage of this process over conventional manufacturing like machining. “Additive manufacturing a powerful tool for the aerospace industry”
7. Please update the introduction with the new publications in the field by comparing your case and the usage of lasers in different areas. Authors are encouraged to read and add the following new papers in the field.

·        Additive manufacturing on the façade: functional use of direct metal laser sintering hatch distance process parameters in building envelope

·        Modeling residual thermal stresses in layer-by-layer formation of direct metal laser sintering process for different scanning patterns for 316L stainless steel

·       Fatigue life optimization for 17-4Ph steel produced by selective laser melting

·       Residual stresses in additively manufactured parts: predictive simulation and experimental verification

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion
Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1.     A lot of grammatical errors are present throughout the manuscript. English language must be properly checked and corrected.

2.     Sentence structure is poor, and it is hard to follow some sentences. Please correct the sentence structure issue.

3.     What is the thermal output/temperature of 355 nm UV laser? NiO needs a high temperature for sintering. Is the used laser capable of properly sinter NiO? Add its description in the main manuscript.

4.     The figure size should match the margins in the manuscript. (generally, 14.6 cm width is used for single-column format)

 

 

 

Author Response

Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion
Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

An optimization of the ultraviolet laser sintering process for aerosol-jet-printed Nickel oxide nanoparticle film was discussed in this article. This result may be referential, but the significance of this work may be insufficient. Besides, there are other issues should to be addressed before publication. 

(1) There are many spelling, grammal and format mistakes.

(2) Only 1.5 W, 2 W and 2.5 W laser outputs are implenmented in the experiments, which is not sufficient, as different defects are existed in all of the films. An further optimized condition should be given and the experimental design should be improved. 

(3) There is a lack of detailed information for the Nickel oxide nanoparticle films as deposited by aerosol jet printing. Besides, it seems to be many satellite piont in the printed films. The influences of the variability of the printing technology itself should be clarified.

(4) The key pionts of the effect of laser sintering process on aerosol jet printed Nickel oxide nanoparticle films should be concluded. What's the differences if other printing technologies are adopted? What's the chanlleges of dealing with a aerosol jet printed film by laser sintering?

 

 

Author Response

Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion
Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is ready to publish.

Reviewer 3 Report

This article can be published in Applied Sciences, although the comment 2 and 4 have not been well addressed from my perspective.