Single-Step Plasma Jet Material Deposition

我们对更便宜、密度更高的电子消费设备不断增长的需求与制造材料的可用性之间存在脱节。未来的制造方法必须通过采用更智能的加工方法来节约材料和能源消耗。许多功能电子器件的构建需要将具有特定物理化学性质的层状材料以精确的精度沉积在低值基板上。材料沉积是一个庞大的产业，包括化学气相沉积（CVD）、溅射、喷涂等物理沉积。然而，随着更复杂的消费设备的开发；还必须开发新的制造方法来支持这一进展。在提出的工作中，我们的目标是开发一种新的节能方法，用于使用大气压等离子体射流打印多种材料。到2023年，金属印刷的价值将达到108亿英镑，并将在未来几十年内增加。制造业的这种创新有可能对这一巨大的市场机会产生影响。在大气压力下使用等离子体射流，有可能颠覆当前在热敏基板上定向金属刻写的技术。这种方法的优点是：在几乎任何表面（包括PTFE，玻璃，聚酰亚胺已被证明）上产生的沉积粘附，材料前体的简单性，表面图案具有数十微米分辨率和温和的能耗。该工艺不会与微电子制造竞争，但有可能改变电子元件之间实现互连的方式，无需焊接。本提案的目标是推动该技术发现该方法可能产生积极影响的其他领域，并改进当前的制造方法。具体来说，我们将专注于高价值器件的非零价材料。

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.