Terahertz technology for quality inspection of printed electronics

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Printed electronics (PE) is an emerging technology for manufacturing customized electronics devices, e.g., solar cells, batteries, sensors in a large volume using roll-to-roll presses. However, up to now, there is no equipment that allows in-line inspection on industrial roll-to-roll presses. Currently, to perform the characterization of printed electronics, the PE manufacturer must resort to ex-situ laboratory analysis methods, i.e., outside the production line, which requires press shutdown to extract a sample for investigation. In addition, these characterization methods are destructive and require extensive analysis and processing time. The lack of an in-line quality control tool is a major drawback: producing prints that do not meet the target performance generates significant monetary and time losses. Consequently, the amount of waste, due to the lack of in-line quality inspection, represents a potential source of contamination when recovering or discarding such e-waste, causing irreversible environmental damage. In 2019, approximately 54 megatons of e-waste were generated, with an alarming increase of 2 megatons per year. Without the rapid arrival of alternative solutions to disrupt the increase of e-waste, the acceleration of the use of printed electronics in commodities will become increasingly costly and may eventually need to be limited to luxury goods. Our product consists of an in-line detection device that monitors and informs in real-time the PE manufacturer concerning the characteristics of the print as it is being pressed. To do this, we propose to integrate printed quality control bars (QCB) analyze them using a novel approach called terahertz (THz) spectroscopy. This solution allow for continuous, non-contact quality control of printed electronics without necessitating a press shutdown and dramatically reducing e-waste.