NRCC | 3d-Printed Electronics Based on Volumetric Additive Manufacturing

National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

3D electronics afford a means to miniaturize and enhance the performance and integration of electronic devices; however, adoption of 3D-printed electronics has been delayed by the lack of processes to effectively produce high-resolution metallic interconnects with good electrical performance on complex 3D shapes. While direct-write 3D printing has demonstrated the ability to generate conformal conductive interconnects, the technique is slow and yields low print resolution. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has developed a new fabrication approach based on tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM) that can produce electronics on complex 3D shapes with high manufacturing speed, high conductivity and 3D design freedom.

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VAM is an emerging 3D printing technique developed in 2019 [1,2] and has since advanced as an additive manufacturing approach that can yield complex 3D objects with ultra-high speeds, with no support structures or layering artifacts. [3-7] The approach projects light patterns onto a rotating vial containing liquid photoresin. When the absorbed light dose reaches a critical threshold, the photoresin cures, resulting in solid polymer. The shape of the solid polymer follows the shape of the patterned light dose inside the printing volume, enabling printing of solid 3D objects. Unlike other 3D printing techniques that are based on layer-by-layer approaches, VAM can be used to 3D-print a polymer on top of an existing structure (Figure 1). The NRC is exploiting this particularly powerful feature of VAM to introduce conductive features to complex 3D shapes. In this approach, VAM is utilized to pattern a functional polymer onto the surface of a 3D object. The printed polymer is functional, allowing it to act as a template for electroless plating of a metal yielding an object with 3D conductive features.

Figure 1. Light images of our test pattern are projected on a rotating square rod. A functional polymer forms on the surface of the rod.

Figure 2. a) The polymer patterned on the square rod acts as a template for copper plating. The overprinted object is treated with a silver salt, which in turn acts as a seed for copper electroless plating.

To realize 3D electronics with VAM, the NRC developed the projection algorithm to account for occlusion due to the opaque base object, the hardware to ensure alignment with projected light and the photoresins to serve as templating layers for copper plating (Figure 2). With this approach, we have demonstrated good print accuracy and resolution, as demonstrated in Figures 3a and b. Our test pattern illustrated the method can produce traces with widths of 70 µm, surface roughness of less than 0.10µm (RMS) with sheet resistances of below 100 mΩ/[]. To further demonstrate the strength of this approach, a multidirectional spiral RF antenna was designed and printed on a hemisphere using VAM. The spiral antenna (Figure 3c) was printed in less than a minute and was treated with copper electroless plating solutions, collectively resulting in a process that requires less than 10 minutes to complete.* The approach is particularly remarkable for its ability to print on any arbitrary object and material type and therefore can be a powerful tool for integrating antennas, metasurfaces or electromagnetic interference shielding onto the surfaces of objects. In summary, this new approach offers speed, resolution, cost efficiency and the ability to print in 3D in an unrestrained way, offering an alternative to extrusion or direct-write 3D printing, which generate conformal conductive interconnects that are slow, require complex 5-axis equipment and yield low print resolution.

Figure 3. a) A test pattern of copper traces printed using the NRC’s VAM approach; b) the target line widths versus the measured line widths of copper traces; b) a spiral antenna printed on a hemisphere and c) S11 response from the spiral antenna.

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References

[1] D. Loterie, P. Delrot, C. Moser, Nature Communications 2020, 11, 852.

[2] B. E. Kelly, I. Bhattacharya, H. Heidari, M. Shusteff, C. M. Spadaccini, H. K. Taylor, Science 2019, 363, 1075

[3] D. Webber, Y. Zhang, K. L. Sampson, M. Picard, T. Lacelle, C. Paquet, J. Boisvert, A. Orth, Optica, OPTICA 2024, 11, 665.

[4] I. Bhattacharya, J. Toombs, H. Taylor, Additive Manufacturing 2021, 47, 102299.

[5] A. Orth, K. L. Sampson, Y. Zhang, K. Ting, D. A. van Egmond, K. Laqua, T. Lacelle, D. Webber, D. Fatehi, J. Boisvert, C. Paquet, Additive Manufacturing 2022, 56, 102869.

[6] A. Orth, D. Webber, Y. Zhang, K. L. Sampson, H. W. de Haan, T. Lacelle, R. Lam, D. Solis, S. Dayanandan, T. Waddell, T. Lewis, H. K. Taylor, J. Boisvert, C. Paquet, Nat Commun 2023, 14, 4412.

[7] D. Webber, A. Orth, V. Vidyapin, Y. Zhang, M. Picard, D. Liu, K. L. Sampson, T. Lacelle, C. Paquet, J. Boisvert, Additive Manufacturing 2024, 94, 104480.

*Design and measurement of the spiral antenna were performed by Prof. Amaya and Hojjat Jamshidi Zarmehri from the University of Carleton, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada