High speed laser printing and sintering of flexible RFID antennas and fingerprint sensors

The recent developments in the field of large area, flexible and printed electronics have fueled substantial advancements in Laser Printing and Laser Sintering, which have been attracting interest over the past decade. Resulting applications, ranging from flexible displays and sensors, to biometric devices and healthcare, have already showcased...

Pico- to nanosecond pulsed laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) of silver nanoparticle inks: a comparative study

Silver nanoparticle inks are among the key functional materials used in printed electronics. Depositing it by laser-induced forward transfer remains a challenging task because the non-linear rheological nature of these inks narrows the range of the laser processing parameters. Understanding, therefore, the influence of the laser parameters on...

Laser induced forward transfer of graphene

Transfer of graphene and other two-dimensional materials is still a technical challenge. The 2D-materials are typically patterned after transfer, which leads to a major loss of material. Here, we present laser induced forward transfer of chemical vapor deposition grown graphene layers with well-defined shapes and geometries. The transfer is...

Laser-induced forward transfer of high-viscosity silver precursor ink for non-contact printed electronics

Non-contact printing techniques are receiving increasing interest in the field of printed electronics, because they can be used to pattern various inks on arbitrary substrates without applying mechanical pressure or damaging pre-patterned components. The ink-jet process is frequently used for non-contact printing of various conductive inks....

Reliability investigations on LIFT-printed isotropic conductive adhesive joints for system-in-foil applications

The reliability of a commercially available isotropic conductive adhesive (ICA) deposited via laser induced forward transfer (LIFT) printing is reported. ICAs are particularly important for surfacemount device (SMD) integration onto low-cost, large-area system-in-foil (SiF) applications such as radio frequency identification (RFID) transponder...

Investigation of the effects of LIFT printing with a KrF-excimer laser on thermally sensitive electrically conductive adhesives

Laser induced forward transfer is an emerging material deposition technology. We investigated the feasibility of this technique for printing thermally sensitive, electrically conductive adhesives with and without using an intermediate dynamic release layer. A 248nm KrF-excimer laser was used to print the epoxy-based conductive adhesives...

Process optimization of LIFT through visualization: towards high resolution metal circuit printing

Laser induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a freeform, additive patterning technique capable of depositing high resolution metal structures. A laser pulse is used to generate small droplets from the donor material, defined by the spot size and energy of the pulse. Metallic as well as non-metallic materials can be patterned using this method. Being...

Alternative technology concepts for low-cost and high-speed 2D and 3D interconnect manufacturing

The current industrial process of choice for Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) of 3D features, e.g. Through-Silicon Vias (TSVs), Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), etc., is the Bosch process, which uses alternative SF 6 etch cycles and C4F8-based sidewall passivation cycles in a time-sequenced mode. An alternative, potentially faster and more...

Laser-induced forward transfer-assisted flip-chip bonding of optoelectronic components

Characterization of metal sprays created by a picosecond Laser-Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) process

A new method to analyze and quantify results obtained with the Laser-Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) process is presented. This experiment based characterization method was designed to investigate the spraying behavior of the LIFT process, that occurs in certain fluence regimes. This method was implemented in MATLAB, and takes 3D data (e.g....

2D and 3D interconnect fabrication by picosecond Laser Induced Forward Transfer

Interconnects are an important cost driver in advanced 3D chip packaging. This holds for Through Silicon Vias (TSV) for chip stacking, but also for other integrated Si-technology. Especially in applications with a low number (<100 mm-2) of relatively large (10-2- um diameter), high aspect ratio (1:5-1:20) vertical interconnects (TSV's),...

Novel approaches for low-cost through-silicon vias

3D stacking of integrated circuits is an emerging packaging technology to enable a high degree of functional integration and miniaturization. Footprint reduction in 3D stacking can be achieved by use of Through Silicon Vias (TSV). Creation of TSVs with Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE), laser drilling and pulse reverse plating is established...