Selectively Metalizable Low-Temperature Cofired Ceramic for Three-Dimensional Electronics via Hybrid Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

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.

Fabrication of polyetheretherketone (PEEK)-based 3D electronics with fine resolution by a hydrophobic treatment assisted hybrid additive manufacturing method

“…In the past years, 3D components with embedded electronics such as sensors [3,4], batteries [5] and antennas [6,7], have been fabricated successfully by using hybrid additive manufacturing (AM) technologies [8,9], which mainly consist of the 3D printing of insulators and direct writing (DW) of conformal circuits thereon. The former is usually conducted by the fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereolithography (SLA), selective laser sintering (SLS) and slurry dispensingsintering methods [10][11][12], etc, and the typical techniques of the latter are inkjet printing, dispensing, aerosol jet printing [13][14][15], etc. Tehrani et al [16] and Li et al [17] prepared the circuits on SLA-printed 3D objects by inkjet printing and micro-dispensing, respectively, by which the mm-wave wireless packaging device and embedded electronics were obtained.…”

“…Yet, the supporting materials or dielectric substrate used in the above method can only be limited to photo-curable polymers, whose heat distortion temperatures and dielectric properties are relatively low, limiting its wide applications in high-temperature and high-frequency service conditions [34]. Aiming this, Wang et al [12] proposed a hybrid AM technology by combining dispensing 3D printing process and LAM for fabricating functional ceramic electronics. Though the ceramic matrix was able to endure high temperature and high voltage, it was more brittle and showed lower toughness compared to polymer.…”

Laser‐Activated Selective Electroless Plating on 3D Structures via Additive Manufacturing for Customized Electronics

“…Selective surface catalyzation defines the plated area via employing various patterning processes, such as catalyst precursor printing, [19,20] photolithography, [21,22] and laser activation, [4,[23][24][25][26][27] to selectively catalyze the surfaces of 3D printed structures. Among these methods, catalyst precursor printing via direct writing (DW) technologies is difficult to control the precision of circuitry patterns due to catalyst ink flowing on the 3D substrate and coffee-ring effect after curing, while photolithography is not applicable to nonplanar 3D structures.…”

Ultraviolet Laser-Induced Selective Metallization on White Polymers Using Oxygen Vacancy Laser Sensitizer for IoT Sensors

“…Laser activation makes laser sensitizers form metallic species, subsequently serving as the active center for initiating ECP. Such laser sensitizers include Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 , 19 CuAl 2 O 4 , 28 CuO•Cr 2 O 3 , 29 CuAc 2 , 30 CuC 2 O 4 , Cu(acac) 2 , 31 and Cu 2 P 2 O 7 •3H 2 O. 26 The second is the autocatalytic mechanism; after laser activation, laser sensitizers are brought to and exposed to the substrate's surface.…”