Selectively Metalizable Low-Temperature Cofired Ceramic for Three-Dimensional Electronics via Hybrid Additive Manufacturing

With increasing interest in the rapid development of customized ceramic electronics, hybrid additive manufacturing (HAM) technology has become a competent alternative to traditional solutions such as printed circuit boards and cofired ceramic technology. Herein, the novel HAM technology is proposed by combining a dispensing three-dimensional (3D) printing process and selectively laser-activated electroless plating for fabricating 3D fully functional ceramic electronic products. An appropriative 3D-printable and metalizable low-temperature cofired ceramic slurry is developed to build the green body of ceramic electronics. After the debinding and sintering process, the 3D ceramic structure can be selectively laser-activated and then electrolessly plated to achieve electronic functionality. The thickness of the plated copper layer approaches 10 μm after 4 h of plating, and the electrical conductivity is 5.5 × 107 S m-1, which is close to pure copper (5.8 × 107 S m-1). To reduce the surface roughness of the laser-activated ceramic surface and thereby enhance the conductivity of the copper layer, the laser parameters are optimized as a 1250 mm s-1 scan speed, a 0.4 W laser power, and a 20 kHz laser-spot frequency. A high-power 3D light-emitting diode circuit board with an internal cooling channel is successfully developed to prove the feasibility of this HAM technology for customizing fully functional 3D conformal ceramic electronics.