Additively Printed Multilayer Substrate Using Aerosol-Jet Technique

Printing technologies, such as aerosol-jet, open possibilities of miniaturizing interconnects and designing circuits on nonplanar surfaces. Aerosol-jet is a direct-printing technique that provides an alternative manufacturing option to traditional subtractive methods that entail lithography or etching. Additionally, the aerosol-jet technique allows the circuits fabrication using noncontact method. Wide impact areas range from healthcare to wearables to future automotive applications. The aerosol-jet printer from Optomec utilized in this study consists of two types of atomizers, depending on ink viscosity. The ultrasonic atomizer, supports ink with a viscosity range of 1–5 cP, and the pneumatic atomizer that has a larger range of 1–1000 cP. This paper focuses on utilizing the aerosol-jet technique, using both atomizers to develop process parameters, in order to successfully print bimaterial, multilayer circuitry. The insulating material between two conductive lines used in the paper is of very high viscosity of 350 cP, which is suitable for the pneumatic atomizer and silver nanoparticle ink with comparatively low viscosity of 30 cP for the ultrasonic atomizer as a conductive ink. This paper also presents a statistical modeling approach that predicts line attributes, including microvia-diameter, before starting the print process, enabling us to pre-adjust the dimensions in computer-aided design for the desired output. Process parameters can obtain a fine print with satisfactory electrical properties, which develops improved dimensional accuracy. The importance of precleaning the substrate in addition to the printing process efficiency gaged as a function of process capability index and process capability ratio is also presented.

Effect of Process Parameters on Aerosol Jet Printing of Multi-Layer Circuitry

Printing technologies such as Aerosol Jet provides the freedom of miniaturizing interconnects and producing fine pitch components. Aerosol Jet, a direct printing technique replaces the traditional steps of manufacturing a printed circuit board such as lithography or etching, which are quite expensive, and further allowing the circuits to be fabricated onto all kinds of substrates. Wide impact areas range from healthcare to wearables to future automotive applications. The aerosol jet printer from Optomec utilized in this study, consists of two types of atomizers depending on ink viscosity. One is Ultrasonic Atomizer which supports ink with viscosity range of 1–5cP, and another is Pneumatic Atomizer with large range of suitable viscosity 1–1000cP. This paper focuses on utilizing the aerosol jet printing using both the atomizers to develop process parameters to be able to successfully print bi-material, multi-layer circuitry. The insulating material between two conductive lines used in the paper is of very high viscosity of 350cP, suitable for Pneumatic atomizer and Silver Nano-particle ink with the viscosity suitable for Ultrasonic atomizer as a conductive ink. A statistical modeling approach is presented to predict the attributes such as micro-via diameter before starting the print process, enabling us to pre-adjust the dimensions in CAD for the desired output. Process parameters to obtain a fine print with good electrical properties and better dimensional accuracy are developed. Importance of pre-cleaning the substrate is discussed, in addition to the printing process efficiency gauged as a function of process capability index and process capability ratio.

Time Resolved Laser Induced Incandescence for Sizing Aerosolized Iron Nanoparticles

This paper summarizes the results of Time-Resolved Laser-Induced Incandescence (TiRe-LII) measurements of iron nanoparticles in He, Ne, Ar, N2, CO, CO2, and N2O. The iron nanoparticles are formed in solution and then aerosolized with a pneumatic atomizer using various carrier gases, so the nanoparticle size is the same for each aerosol and the TiRe-LII signal only differs due to the different thermal accommodation coefficient (TAC). Thermal accommodation coefficients for the Fe-Ar, and Fe-N2 aerosols, derived from molecular dynamics using ab initio potentials, are compared with values inferred from the TiRe-LII measurements.