Combinatorial searches of inorganic materials using the ink jet printer: science, philosophy and technology

The juxtaposition of direct ceramic ink-jet printing with high throughput s creening, data-mining and interpretation methods using artificial neural ne tworks is bringing to the ceramics community a capability for combinatorial analysis presently enjoyed mainly by the pharmaceutical industry. This pap er attempts to set out the potential and scope for high speed, high resolut ion sample preparation, high throughput screening and informatics-driven lo cal optimisation methods. It describes the distinct philosophical basis for this approach to discovery and identifies it as primarily Baconian. It exa mines in detail the aspirating-dispensing systems being used for ceramic sa mple preparation from powder suspensions, explores their likely strengths a nd limitations and how these may be mitigated through the application of so phisticated computational methods. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.