Single-Step Plasma Jet Material Deposition

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

There is a disconnect between our ever-increasing demand for cheaper higher density electronic consumer devices with availability of fabrication materials. Future manufacturing approaches must be frugal with material and energy consumption by employing smarter processing approaches. The construction of many functional electronic devices require layered materials with defined physicochemical properties deposited on low value substrates with exquisite precision. Materials deposition is a huge industry, encompassing chemical vapour deposition (CVD), sputtering, spraying and other physical deposition. However, as more complex consumer devices are developed; new manufacturing methodologies must also be developed to support this progress. In the proposed work, we aim to develop a new energy efficient approach for printing multiple materials using an atmospheric pressure plasma jet. Metal printing is set to be worth £10.8 billion by 2023 and is set to increase over the next decades. This innovation in manufacturing has the potential to impact on this substantial market opportunity. Using plasma jets at atmospheric pressure, has the potential to disrupt the current technology for directed metal writing on thermally sensitive substrates. The advantages of this approach are: resulting deposit adhesion on practically any surface (including PTFE, glass, polyimide which have been demonstrated), simplicity of material precursors, surface patterning with tens of micron resolution and modest energy consumption. This process is not going to compete with microelectronics fabrication, but has the potential to transform the way interconnects between electronic components are achieved, free of solder. The objective of this proposal is to push the technology to discover other areas that this method could impact positively and improve on the current manufacturing approaches. Specifically, we will focus on non-zero valent materials for high value devices.