In Situ Nanocomposite Fabrication for RF Electronics Applications With Additive Manufacturing

Advances in Wirelessly Powered Backscatter Communications: From Antenna/RF Circuitry Design to Printed Flexible Electronics

“…While both aerosol-jet and inkjet can deposit a variety of materials, including high-conductivity silver nanoparticle (SNP) inks and low-loss polyimides, ink-jet processes typically utilize a large array of nozzles, up to 1024 in a print head, which dramatically reduces fabrication time of both thick and thin dielectric films for improved radiation or coupling, as well as enabling large conductive ground planes [90]. Recently, there has been a significant characterization of the processes to optimize materials and printing procedures specifically toward achieving reliable fabrication up to mm-wave, with the characterization of dielectric with low losses and conductors that achieve near bulk conductivity through electroless processes [91], [92]. Printing can occur on arbitrary substrates, enabling thin flexible designs on thin flexible conformal substrates to conformally jetted onto large 3-D printed parts, such as 3-D printed semiconductor packaging for system on/in package integration (see Fig.…”

Recent Advances in Multi-Material 3D Printing of Functional Ceramic Devices

“…Multi-material 3D printing enables ceramic capacitors to be fabricated directly from digital models, which provides an effective tool to enhance the flexibility of the substrate, material, and design, as well as reduce consumption and turnaround time [ 196 ]. Reviewing the recent research on multi-material 3D printing of ceramic capacitors, two major dielectric materials have been developed: pure ceramics [ 184 , 185 , 186 , 187 , 197 , 198 , 199 ] and ceramic/polymer composites [ 200 , 201 , 202 , 203 , 204 , 205 , 206 , 207 ]. For example, Rammal et al [ 197 ] presented a fully inkjet-printed metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor formed by layer-on-layer deposition of silver nanoparticle and ceramic nanoparticle (a low-temperature cofired ceramic material from Heraeus) based inks.…”

“…There have been significant efforts to build chip-first packages and interconnects using multi-material 3D printing [ 214 , 215 , 216 , 217 , 218 ]. For example, using a multi-material aerosol jet printer (Optomec Aerosol Jet 5X), Craton et al [ 206 ] fabricated BaTiO 3 /polyimide composite films whose mixing ratios were dynamically adjusted during printing via an in situ mixing strategy, leading to tunable dielectric and mechanical properties (e.g., permittivity and coefficient of thermal expansion). Ring resonator circuits and MIM capacitors were printed on a molybdenum copper alloy (85% Mo and 15% Cu) carrier to characterize the BaTiO 3 /polyimide composite films.…”

Systematic Design of a Graphene Ink Formulation for Aerosol Jet Printing

“…A new generation of electronics will include conformal, flexible, and stretchable devices, such as electronic skin, mechanical sensors, energy harvesting and storage devices, , biomedical and biological sensors, − and wireless antennas . Printing technologies provide a compelling fabrication platform for these systems, with inherent advantages for large-area and flexible form factors .…”

“…A new generation of electronics will include conformal, flexible, and stretchable devices, such as electronic skin, 1 mechanical sensors, 2 energy harvesting and storage devices, 3,4 biomedical 5 and biological sensors, 6−8 and wireless antennas. 9 Printing technologies provide a compelling fabrication platform for these systems, with inherent advantages for large-area and flexible form factors. 10 Roll-to-roll methods such as gravure printing support high-throughput and low-cost manufacturing, 11,12 while digital methods such as inkjet and aerosol jet printing (AJP) streamline prototyping and customization by reducing cost and time required to generate new printing patterns via software.…”