With increasing interest in the rapid
development of customized
ceramic electronics, hybrid additive manufacturing (HAM) technology
has become a competent alternative to traditional solutions such as
printed circuit boards and cofired ceramic technology. Herein, the
novel HAM technology is proposed by combining a dispensing three-dimensional
(3D) printing process and selectively laser-activated electroless
plating for fabricating 3D fully functional ceramic electronic products.
An appropriative 3D-printable and metalizable low-temperature cofired
ceramic slurry is developed to build the green body of ceramic electronics.
After the debinding and sintering process, the 3D ceramic structure
can be selectively laser-activated and then electrolessly plated to
achieve electronic functionality. The thickness of the plated copper
layer approaches 10 μm after 4 h of plating, and the electrical
conductivity is 5.5 × 107 S m–1,
which is close to pure copper (5.8 × 107 S m–1). To reduce the surface roughness of the laser-activated ceramic
surface and thereby enhance the conductivity of the copper layer,
the laser parameters are optimized as a 1250 mm s–1 scan speed, a 0.4 W laser power, and a 20 kHz laser-spot frequency.
A high-power 3D light-emitting diode circuit board with an internal
cooling channel is successfully developed to prove the feasibility
of this HAM technology for customizing fully functional 3D conformal
ceramic electronics.