EAGER: Rapid Selective Sintering of Metallic Nanoparticles via a Microheater Array

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The electronics industry is searching for new manufacturing methods in order to meet high market demand for customizable, light weight, environmentally friendly, flexible electronics. This EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award supports an exploratory study of an early-stage digital manufacturing method that has significant potential to offer fast, customizable, energy efficient manufacturing of flexible printed electronics. The unique microheater array powder sintering process uses an array of digitally controlled microheaters to rapidly (millisecond time scale) deliver a user-defined focused heat pattern for selective sintering of metallic nanoparticles on polymer substrates. This award will support fundamental research on the underlying physics of microscale heat transfer, mass transfer, and sintering required to bond the metallic nanoparticles to each other and to adhere them to the flexible substrate. If successful, this project will enable further development of the microheater array powder sintering process to provide a viable, high speed, scalable, digital manufacturing technology, with the potential to significantly lower manufacturing costs and improve the printing quality over existing manufacturing methods for printed electronics, such as flexible printed circuits and printed antennas. Successfully achieving this will increase the competitiveness of industries in this field, and advance national prosperity. Students involved in this research will gain knowledge and research capabilities in multi-physics modeling, digital manufacturing, materials, and printed electronics, thus providing excellent preparation for the advanced manufacturing workforce. Education and outreach activities will focus on broadening the participation of students from underrepresented groups and increase awareness of the career opportunities in manufacturing. The objective of this project is to study the interactions of the multiple underlying physics of the rapid localized heating and sintering of metallic nanoparticle based inks via direct heat transfer from a microscale heat source, which is critical for understanding the potential and limitations of the microheater array powdering sintering process for printed electronics. Specifically, this project aims to: a) model the coupling of the heat transfer and the evaporation of the nanoparticle suspension when subjected to intense heat from a microheater in millisecond timescale to identify processing rate limitations; b) understand the interaction between the microscale heat transfer and the sintering kinetics of the metallic nanoparticles; c) verify the limits of heater induced heat penetration to ensure robust adhesion of the sintered nanoparticles to the plastic substrate. Upon successful completion of the project, experimentally validated models will be available for identification of optimal processing conditions that can be extended to a full scale, fully digital version of the process.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.