Adhesion Enhancement of a Plated Copper Layer on an AlN Substrate Using a Chemical Grafting Process at Room Temperature

Abstract

AlN substrates have been extensively used for heat dissipation, especially in high-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs). However, the AlN substrate is an electric insulator and thus needs to be metalized to serve as an electric circuit carrier and heat conductor for LED packaging. Herein, we propose a wet process that can be performed at room temperature to metallize AlN substrates. The wet metallization process involves copper electroless deposition and copper electroplating. The catalyst used for the copper electroless deposition was PdCl 2 , which was chemically grafted onto the AlN surface. The chemical grafting agent was 3-(2-aminoethylamino)propyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS). Before the chemical grafting step, an etching step in KOH solution was critical for good adhesion of the plated copper layer. The electroless copper depositions were catalyzed using chemically grafted Pd and a commercial Sn/Pd colloid. An adhesion comparison test of the plated copper layers was performed to demonstrate that the copper adhesion performance obtained with the chemically grafted Pd process was substantially better than that obtained with the commercial Sn/Pd colloid process.

Electroless Deposition of Ni-P on Poly (ether ether ketone)/Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Composite and Improvement of the Electrical Conductivity in Direction of Thickness

“…Generally the surface with good wettability is benefit to the absorption of metal catalysts. [25][26][27] However, in this study, the wettability was decreased with swelling and sonicating treatment. Especially for the sonicated swelled sample, the surface was hydrophobic with a water contact angles higher than 120 • .…”

Electrochemical Copper Metallization of Glass Substrates Mediated by Solution-Phase Deposition of Adhesion-Promoting Layers

“…These peel strength values are comparable to those reported by Shen and Dow for adherent Cu films on AlN substrates enabled using chemical grafting. 15 While the above adhesion testing establishes the basic feasibility of an 'all-wet' route for depositing thick, adherent Cu films on glass substrates, further process optimization and characterization is needed to implement the process on large-area substrates and on patterned surfaces.…”

Polydopamine and Its Composite Film as an Adhesion Layer for Cu Electroless Deposition on SiO2

“…The development of bonding techniques for heterogeneous interfaces has attracted significant attention for many applications. [1][2][3][4] It is because functional devices often incorporate materials with distinct physical properties, and misfits in the lattice constants and coefficients for thermal expansion are quite common, resulting in poor adhesion at the interface. [5][6][7][8] For example, in semiconductor manufacturing and print circuit broad industries, the deposition of metallic conductive layer on ceramic or polymeric substrates is considered to be one of the critical steps.…”