Department of Electronics

Printable Electronics

Final Report

Author: Rana Azhar Shaheen Student # 217446

Supervisor: Matti Mntysalo

3rd May 2010

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ABSTRACT
The fabrication of different electronic devices includes the deposition of thin film materials. Development in the fabrication techniques such as lithography, masking, tools and photo resist materials brought the concept of miniaturization but with the expense of cost and time. Rapid prototyping of electronic devices with the help of CAD/CAM processes is gaining importance day by day, due to which lots of directwrite technologies have been emerged to satisfy this need. They build structures with different resolutions, writing speeds, three-dimensional processing, and operational environment.

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CONTENT
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ II CONTENT ................................................................................................................. III 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Direct-Write technologies in Electronics......................................................... 1 1.2. Biomaterials ................................................................................................... 2 2. Direct-Write Technologies used for microelectronic manufacturing ........................ 3 2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 3 2.2. Micro-dispensers ............................................................................................ 3 2.3. Laser-Assisted Transfer .................................................................................. 4 2.4. Electrostatic-Assisted Transfer ....................................................................... 5 2.5. Jetting............................................................................................................. 5 3. Electrochemical Power Devices in Direct-Write Technologies ................................ 6 3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 6 3.2. Classification of Electrical Power Devices ...................................................... 6 3.3. Direct-Write Layers ........................................................................................ 8 3.4. Battery and fuel cell applications using Direct-Write Layers......................... 10 4. Advanced Materials for Direct-Write Technologies ............................................... 12 4.1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 12 4.2. Existing Material Systems Direct-Write Technologies .................................. 12 4.3. Materials Requirements in Different Deposition Methods............................. 13 4.4. Super-Low-Fire Inks and Pastes ................................................................... 15 5. Ink-Jet Technique.................................................................................................. 17 5.1. Continuous Mode Ink-jet Technology........................................................... 17 5.2. Demand Mode Ink-Jet Technology ............................................................... 18 5.3. Materials for Jetting Technology .................................................................. 18 5.4. Pattern Formation ......................................................................................... 18 5.5. Direct-Write Applications............................................................................. 19 6. Direct-Write Micromachining Using Laser............................................................ 22

IV 6.1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 22 6.2. Laser-Matter Interaction ............................................................................... 22 6.3. Laser Micromachining .................................................................................. 23 6.4. Laser Micromachining Tools ........................................................................ 24 6.5. Applications of Laser Micromachining ......................................................... 25 7. Micrometer and Nanometer Pattern and Material Transfer Technologies ............... 26 7.1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 26 7.2. Applications of Pattern Transfer Technologies ............................................. 27 7.3. Different Lithography Techniques ................................................................ 27 7.4. Applications of Material Transfer Technologies ........................................... 28 7.5. Methods of Material Transfer Technologies ................................................. 28 8. References ............................................................................................................ 29

1.

Introduction

The fabrication of different electronic devices includes the deposition of thin film materials. Development in the fabrication techniques such as lithography, masking, tools and photo resist materials brought the concept of miniaturization but with the expense of cost and time. Rapid prototyping of electronic devices with the help of CAD/CAM processes is gaining importance day by day, due to which lots of directwrite technologies have been emerged to satisfy this need. They build structures with different resolutions, writing speeds, three-dimensional processing, and operational environment. Different direct-write technologies are available in the market such as, ink-jet printing, laser transfer techniques, laser vapor deposition (LCVD), matrixassisted pulsed-laser evaporation direct-write (MAPLE-DW) and micropen [1]. The development in the direct-write technologies is growing due to the development of different microlevel devices such as third generation sensors for medical applications which require more miniaturization to decrease their size. Two major areas, electronics and biomaterials are playing the key role in the development of direct-write prototyping as the majority applications of direct-write technologies belong to these areas.

1.1.

Direct-Write technologies in Electronics

Direct-write technologies can be used to reduce the cost with rapid prototyping of different electronic devices e.g. biological and chemical sensors, to simplify the manufacturing of printed circuit board at low costs and tissue engineering. Fig.1 shows different applications using different direct-write techniques. Each application has different manufacturing criteria depending on the method of direct-writing. Different tools are needed to transfer the different materials, not a single tool can write all the materials at the same time, so more than one tool is used to direct-write the material on the substrate.

Figure 1. Direct-write applications using different tools.[1]

The major challenges in direct-writing the materials on 3-D surfaces are low temperature processing and high writing speeds. Today, direct-write techniques are able to manufacture the passive components and interconnect between the components with almost same performance as with thick-film techniques using different conductive and dielectric materials. The available techniques for direct-writing the material on the substrate as shown in fig. 1, differ from each other by the method they use to transfer the material. Material development play very important role in the development of direct-write systems. Starting materials commonly known as pastes or inks consist of different powders, organic precursors, binders, vehicles, solvent, dispersants and surfactants [1]. These materials are deposited at low processing temperatures to manufacture conductors, dielectrics and resistors for passive components at low temperature substrates.

1.2.

Biomaterials

Advancement in the materials has driven the development in direct-writing of electronic materials but advancements in transfer techniques developed the deposition of biomaterials. There are many tools that have to ability to deposit any kind of material on any substrate with micrometer scale accuracy. Two laser transfer techniques are being used to deposit the biomaterials. Laser guided transfer technique is used to deposit the neural living cells which can be further used for analysis. The deposition of biomaterials can be done in three dimensional manner to manipulate physical structures for analysis their behavior and diagnose different diseases.

2.

Direct-Write Technologies used microelectronic manufacturing

for

2.1.
Different

Introduction
significant properties such as three dimensional fabrication,

miniaturization, substrate versatility and rapid prototyping made the direct-write technologies a very important candidate for the next generation electronic devices. The recent trends in microelectronic industry are adopting the direct-write technologies because they use compact system assemblies with very low weights. Rapid prototyping is another main feature of these technologies which play important role in the development of electronic industry. For continuous, non stop, long-term and reliable supplying it is important to make some industry standard for these technologies which can be used by multiple vendors. There are different kinds of technologies available in the market which can be used to manufacture microelectronics with direct-write techniques which are listed as follows: 1- Microdispensing 2- Laser-assisted transfer 3- Electrostatic assisted transfer 4- Jetting

2.2.

Micro-dispensers

In the microelectronics industry different commercial micro-dispensing technologies are available such as, rotary screw, needle valve and positive displacement piston. Cost of these systems vary between $125K to $250K, require special clean room environment with the dimensions of room approximately 9.3 m 2 of floor. Sensitivity of direct-write systems for microelectronics is high as very small gauge dispensing tips are used to get fine features. To dispense uniform structures, different parameters such as viscosity and surface tension of starting materials, needle gauge and length play an important role. The repeatability of the deposited materials and its volume depends on

4 the dispensing technique used. The dimensions range of the deposited materials with micro-dispensers are 25 - 300m wide and 1.3 - 51m thick [1]. The fabricated electronic circuit by using micro-dispensing system is shown in fig. 1.

Figure 2. fabricated electronic circuitry with 40m width and thickness of 5m using micro-dispensing system.

2.3.

Laser-Assisted Transfer

The transfer of metals and other conductive and insulating materials can be possible with the use of laser-assisted transfer systems from the donor films to substrates. In microelectronics industry, these systems are being used in wafer fabrication and also in transferring of gold onto pin connections. Multiple laser processes such as transfer, sintering, curing and annealing are being combined to develop a single system by using a laser with different wavelengths. Higher power lasers to heat the small part of the substrates for sintering and curing, are under development. The schematic of laserassisted transfer technology is shown in fig. 2. The deposition of materials with 25m dimensions can be possible with the use a laser-assisted technique. Some systems of laser-assisted transfer melt the metal nanoparticles during the flight before hitting to the substrate.

Figure 2. Schematic of laser assisted technology. [1]

2.4.

Electrostatic-Assisted Transfer

Electrostatic-assisted transfer is based on xerographic printing [1]. Different material parameters are important in this type of transfer. Electrostatic-assisted transfer technique is being used commercially for manufacturing of different scales of microelectronics devices. They can deposit line widths of 30 m with 3.5 m spot size at micro-scale. Scanning speed of a 10 cm wide scanner can be 500 rev/s . Micro-scale manufacturing of a 10 cm x 10 cm substrate can be done in 16 sec.

2.5.

Jetting

Jetting technology has the ability to deposit the materials at low temperatures. Some ink-jetting techniques are used to process the inks thermally, with small range of viscosities. The ink-jetting process is described in details in section 4. The modern jetting techniques are using the piezoelectric materials to pressurize the ink to exit from the orifice with applied voltage pulse. the viscosities of the inks used in jetting systems should be high which can easily come out from the orifice. Different modes are used to transfer the material onto the substrate, i.e. continuous mode and demand-on mode jetting.

3.

Electrochemical Power Devices in DirectWrite Technologies

3.1.

Introduction

The devices like batteries, fuel cells and capacitors are the devices that stores or produces electrical energy, these devices are known as electrochemical devices. Directwrite deposition technologies can be used to improve the efficiency of electrochemical devices. Materials can be deposited with direct-write tools with different tools at low temperatures. Power devices are considered as the back bone of the electronic industry. Batteries are used for portable devices like, laptops, cell phones and MP3 players while nonportable devices can be powered from the national grid distributed system. Fuel cells are gaining importance in the distribution power generation due to the better performance and high-reliability electrical power.

3.2.

Classification of Electrical Power Devices

The electrical power devices are classified into different categories depending on the method by which they generate energy, e-g. batteries and capacitors store chemical energy and convert or produce electrical energy, fuel cells convert chemical energy into electrical energy by using different fuels i.e. gasoline, natural gas or methanol. Power devices are manufactured depending on the performance characteristics of the power devices rather than the requirement of the device to which it is providing power. Hence there is a strong need of such packaging structures in which power devices are integrated into the package, deriving power to the device on demand. Direct-write technologies specifically printed technology is the best candidate in this regard in which the battery is printed into the device packaging.

Figure 1. schematic representation of the power requiremts for devices as a function of the size of the device [1].

Fuel cells
Fuel cells have several advantages over their mechanical counter parts in generating electrical power. They create less noise, operate at low temperatures, avoid pollution and have higher efficiency. Fuel cells convert a fuel such as gasoline, natural gas, or hydrogen into electrical energy. There are five types of fuel cells; alkaline fuel cells (AFC), phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFC), the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). These technologies are suitable for different kind of applications like DMFCs are most suitable for small portables. Among all of these, PEMFC suits best candidate for different kind of big applications like, electric vehicles and large portables. The range power production of these technologies varies with the used technology, like DMFC provide power in the range of 0.01-300W which is best for small applications, while PEMFCs produce high power in the range of 100-300,000 W and SOFCs provide best alternative for low-power applications such as, MEMS and RF tags. The MCFCs and SOFCs are based on high temperatures to produce electrical power so they are not suitable to fabricate with direct-write technologies, while other technologies like, DMFC, PEMFC, PAFC and AFC are related with low temperature fuels known as electrocatalysts.

Batteries
Batteries convert chemical energy into electrical energy. They store energy in the form of chemical energy and convert it into electrical energy on demand. There are two

8 categories of batteries with respect to the demand of applications, nonchargeable and rechargeable. Due to the increasing demand of performace and the very fast marketadoption rates, the new trend is being developed in battery industry to develop the application-specific batteries using custom-designs. As the development in the products which depend on the batteries are getting high speed, while the battery industry still based on the 20 year old theories. Due to this lagging in technology development of batteries also become a hurdle in the development of many electronic products. Also there are lots of applications and devices (RF tags, powered greeting cards and magazines) that can become cheaply available if the dimensions of batteries can be reduces (very thin with high power). The reduction in size and weight are material and fabrication technology dependent, which can be easily achieved by using printable material systems. The development of battery industry bring the Li-polymer batteries which have the same energy density as of Li-ion but it can be formed into different shapes and sizes to fulfill the application-specific requirements.

Supercapacitors
Supercapacitors have capability to store much more energy than conventional batteries on the same weight and size. They are a type of capacitors that stores energy within two electrochemical parallel plates. The charge separation is high so the resultant capacitance per unit area is also large. Supercapacitors can achieve high efficiency performance if combined with a battery. They have no limit for charging and discharging providing high discharge currents. They have identical structure to the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) in a PEMFC.

3.3.

Direct-Write Layers

The performance of batteries and fuel cells can be enhanced by improving the materials of thinner and well composed layer structures, and this can be done by depositing the patterned layers using the different direct-write deposition technologies. The efficient use of materials for high volume manufacturing, in cases where the materials can be extremely expensive is one advantage of using direct write layers. The direct-write tools can also be efficiently used to control the deposition of material layers to a surface over very short distances in different dimensions. Direct-write tools can be

9 used to deposit the layers to provide the complex topographical structures. Patterned layers are used to control the functionality of the application, which can be deposited by using direct-write technologies.

PEMFCs
A PEMFC is composed of three sections as shown in figure 2, the fuel processor, the power section of fuel cell stack and the power conditioner. The fuel processor converts the fuel of the cell into hydrogen rich gas. The ideal case is to convert the fuel into hydrogen and supply it to power section of PEMFC. This hydrogen rich gas is then used in the fuel cell stack for further operation. MEA (Membrane Electrode Assembly) is the place where the hydrogen gas from the fuel processor and air is delivered to convert chemical energy into chemical energy by using electrocatalysts as shown in figure 2(b). Each MEA unit provides up to 0.8 V and the overall voltage is formed from the combination of number of MEA cells. The MEA cell voltage and its current density are the two performance parameters which can be represented by the curve, called polarization curve.

(a)

(b)

Figure 2.[1] (a) schematic of PEMFC, (b) view of one MEA

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Metal-Air Batteries
There are different kinds of metal-air batteries which have the best and highest power densities of all other battery power sources. Different metal can be used in the combination of air to construct these batteries such as, Li, Fe, Al and Zn. Metal is used at one terminal of the battery (anode) and life cycle of the battery depends on the mass of metal used. The air is used on the other terminal of the battery (cathode) and the discharge rate depends on this part of the battery. Metals used in the metal-air batteries have limited scaling and life cycle due to which their use in portable devices is limited. The critical part of the construction of these batteries is to print the layers especially the electrode that compose air and the performance of the battery depends on these layers. The materials used in fuel cells and metal-air batteries are almost similar because these two technologies based on the similar structures. These materials are categorized under three classes, (i) materials that can be processed at low temperatures, such as silver to generate current collectors, (ii) electrocatalyst powders, which is normally used in spray-based manufacturing, (iii) ion transport and hydrophobic control materials.

3.4. Battery and fuel cell applications using Direct-Write Layers

The performance of the battery and fuel cell can be improved by using the layers deposited by direct-write technologies. There are different layers such as current collector and active layers which can be deposited using direct layer tools to improve the performance of these layers.

Current Collector
Generally the current collector layers used in batteries are composed of nickel mesh, which have some advantages such as its structural rigidity, and some disadvantages as well such as its relatively large thickness and difficult to integrate into high-volume manufacturing process. In this scenario, a direct-write current collector can be the best alternative to this problem as the silver based grid structures can be deposited with different direct write tools.

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Active Layers
The active layers are the layers which are deposited on the surface of the current collector layer of metal-air batteries and fuel cells for the catalytic reaction of the gases. Different kinds of performance parameters can be achieved if these layers are deposited using direct-write technologies such as, deposition of controllable thickness of layers, specific-placement of materials and the control of composition of different layers over very small distances. Syringe dispenser is the best choice of direct-write tool to deposit active layer because it has better control over these parameters.

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4.

Advanced Materials Technologies

for

Direct-Write

4.1.

Introduction

Materials play a key role in the development of the direct-write technologies. The goal of a direct write tool is to produce the rapid prototyping of the electronic devices such as sensors, by fabricating the different materials which are dissimilar to each other, but have same intrinsic properties to perform the desired function. The whole directwrite prototyping process highly depends on these materials as they are the starting point. The material used in direct-write technologies depends on the method of transfer. The growing field of wireless devices increases the demand for mobile phones and portable devices with high data transfer capability is revolutionizing the electronics packaging and designing industry. Lots of new technologies have been emerged to replace the old ones to meet the challenges in the industry. Flip chip technology is one example of next generation interconnects technology which is the alternative of wirebonded packages. It provides the direct electrical connection between substrate and die. Due to the lots of developments at huge pace in the electronics industry the new hot topics for the research and development is to manufacturing the passive and active components (resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, sensors, batteries) on three dimensional substrates with the help of computer aided design or computer aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) tools.

4.2. Existing Material Systems Direct-Write Technologies

The performance of any direct-write technology mainly depends on the material performance after processing at low temperatures. The available source materials such as thin film and thick film do not fulfill completely the required promising processing in direct-write technologies under desired conditions. So, the new tool specific materials needed to be developed that can be compatible with direct-write technologies under specific thermal processing conditions. There are different material systems

13 commercially available in the market such as, thin film, thick film and polymer thick film, they are summarized in fig. 1.

Figure 1. overview of different technologies with their sizes and processing temperatures.

Thick film like polymer thick film and inorganic thick film technologies are compatible for the higher processing temperatures so unusable for organic substrates. Inorganic thick-film technology include sintering of metal powders, metal oxide, glass and other powders and need high processing temperatures. Also they have higher feature sizes of about 100 microns as shown by fig. 1. Polymer thick-film also have the problem of feature size but they can be processed at relatively low temperatures with the expense of low quality and reliability problems. Thick film technologies are mainly used in screen printing where the resolution is pretty higher than other existing technologies. Thin-film material technology can be processed at low temperatures and also have small feature sizes but with higher costs than other technologies.

4.3. Materials Requirements in Different Deposition Methods

The available and emerging direct-write technologies (printing) need specific requirements for the processing of materials under specific conditions. Some are

discussed here such as, ink jetting, plasma spray deposition, microsyringe dispensing, matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation-direct write (MAPLE-DW), laser guidance and laser chemical vapor deposition (LCVD).

14 Ink jetting is used in a wide range of printing techniques where the drop or column of ink printed on a printing substrates. The drop-on-demand printing has some advantages such as it is more compatible with digital technology, due to its printing in discrete manners, its speed and scalability give options for high frequency printing with multiple nozzles adjusted in array which makes it possible to use different types of inks in a single printing process. Different techniques are used in jetting the ink and most important is the use of piezoelectric materials for creating the pressure to eject the single drop through the nozzle. When the thick layers ( > 10m) of metals, metal alloys, ceramics, dielectrics and polymers are desired to deposit on a substrate then thermal/plasma spray deposition process would be the best option. This technology has wide range of applications such as, automotive components, gas turbine components, paper processing, printing and biomedical parts. Thermal spray technology is becoming the topic of research in different new technologies like, fabrication of meso-electronic multi layers, sensor systems and embedded sensors. The most straight-forward method for direct-writing the materials on the substrates is microsyringe dispensing technique. The ink or paste is pressurized or forced through a small syringe to deposit on the substrate to form the deposited pattern by moving the pen relative to the instructions given through CAD/CAM processing. The deposited material is then dried or heated to make it functional. Modern technologies of direct-writing the materials onto the substrates include the important role of lasers. One of the technique used for direct-writing using lasers is matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation which uses the laser to transfer the material onto the substrate. Laser pulse acts as a transparent carrier in transferring the material. While transferring, the material absorbs the energy of the laser which make it evaporated at the interface causing the transfer of discrete packet of material towards the substrate. Desired pattern of writing can be achieved by using a sequence of laser pulses for material transfer while moving one or both pulses at a time. Laser guidance and flow guidance technique is another use of laser in direct-writing the materials. The generation of precursor materials is done in a aerosol generator from which the droplets are deposited onto the desired substrate by using either laser guidance through a thin fiber optic or flow guidance through an orifice. For the generation of precursor materials in aerosol generator, the organic solutions of molecular precursors or suspension of powders are used which is different than other delivery methods discussed in this

15 section. Finally, the thermal processing of direct-writing using the laser is known as laser chemical vapor deposition (LCVD). The small part of the substrate is heated up using the laser and transfer the material in gaseous state to the substrate. This processing is done at low temperatures by heating a small spatial part at one time by using a short pulse of the laser.

4.4. Super-Low-Fire Inks and Pastes

The development in inks and pastes is being done to produce the materials for conventional as well as direct-write technologies to deposit the components such as conductors, resistors, batteries, capacitors and inductors. The previously discussed thick-film and thin film approaches are compatible with the low temperatures. Also metals and ceramic deposition occur at high temperatures which are not suitable for organic substrates. To overcome these problems, the approach to combine the material chemistry and laser processing is used, which can be shown in fig. 2.

Figure 2. Graphical representation of the general approach to combine the material chemistries and laser processing

The formulation of ink or paste is the basic and starting point for any deposition system. The ink formulation include the low viscosity formulation that can be used in ink jetting technique, paste is a thick formulation than ink and can be used in screen printing or tape casting. After depositing the inks or pastes to the substrate the drying process is used to evaporate the liquid from the deposited paste or ink. Rapid drying at high temperatures should be avoided. To speedup the drying process air flow drying can be used. The formulation of inks or pastes for deposition of passive components with direct-write tool depends on the molecular precursors. The precursor chemistry depends

16 on whether an ink or a thick film paste and the direct write tool used. A typical mixture for a paste would contain particles, a molecular precursor to the functional phase, vehicle, binder and additives. Low-melting glass can be used as additives which has many technological advantages such as good dielectric and structural strengths. Conductors act as mainly as wiring to connect all the components to form the functional circuit. They played an important role in the hybrid microelectronics. They can be formulated in both low viscosity inks with or without solid particles and thick film pastes with high solid particles. The determining parameters for the best suited materials are low cost, compatibility with the substrates, conductivity, resistance and attainable minimum feature size.

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5.

Ink-Jet Technique

Ink-jet printing is a valuable technique for direct-writing the materials on organic substrates at low temperatures with the drop size of material to be transferred ranges from 15-200m at rates of 0-25,000 per second per droplet. There are different applications of printing technique using piezoelectric dispensing, such as biomedical reagents, liquid metals and optical polymers. Depositing materials using ink-jet technique requires CAD information only and is data-driven with no mask or screens required.

5.1.

Continuous Mode Ink-jet Technology

In this technology a continuous stream of drops under pressure, ejected from an orifice of diameter 50-80m due to the pressure created from some electromechanical device. The drop forming comes into place when fluid passes under charged field when comes out from orifice thus each drop acquires static charge. These charged drops transfer to their desired positions on the substrate with the help of an electrostatic field which is used to deflect the charged drops. This procedure is well described in fig. 1.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of a continuous mode ink jet printing system

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5.2.

Demand Mode Ink-Jet Technology

In this technology the drop formation depends on the applied voltage pulse to the electromechanical device such as, piezoelectric material, which is generating pressure to the fluid causing the production of a drop from the orifice. The name of this system Drop on Demand is due to the nature of its working as the drop is generated when desired. This phenomenon is described in fig. 2.

Figure 2. Schematic of a Drop on Demand printing system.

5.3.

Materials for Jetting Technology

Jetting materials have some property requirements which should be taken into account. The viscosity of the ink should not be very low as it can create some difficulties in satellite formation and lack of acoustic damping. Similarly, very high surface tensions of the inks can lead to difficulties but some materials are being dispensed with very high surface tensions such as solders have surface tensions 6 times that of distilled water. There is a range of material properties as mentioned above which should not be exceeded, if particle suspensions are required then the density and size of the particle size should not exceed the material properties range.

5.4.

Pattern Formation

Pixel size and its selection is the basic thing in image formation, then the desired pixels can be filled with the help of ink-jet dispenser. The development and performance of ink-jet printing system for electronic assembly mainly depends on whether the system is using aqueous ink or solder. As the rapid spreading of ink on

19 some organic substrates such as polymer can cause the larger spot size than drop size which may degrade the quality of printed lines. So for desired quality of resolution of printed lines is required then spreading of ink on substrate should be control. Phase change materials can be one alternative to this problem as the ink solidifies just after printing, such as solders for electronic manufacturing. Phase change materials are good for avoiding spreading but it creates a bump when a uniform layer is required instead of a bump. This was the problem for the better resolution of the image as it distorted the image by diffraction of projected light due to rounded shapes of individual bumps. To cope with this problem, flattening of bumps into a smooth surface was used.

5.5.

Direct-Write Applications

Solder jetting is widely used in electronics industry to deposit small solders for interconnections in chip-packaging. Different methods are used to deposit solder bumps such as ink-jet technology to produce metal spheres and balloons. Piezoelectric actuators are used in demand mode jetting which is better than continuous mode jetting for deposition of solder bumps.

Optical Microlenses
Direct-write technology is gaining importance in the field of photonics as well due to the acceptance of optical technologies for transmission of higher data with lower costs. The deposition of optical waveguides and refractive microlenses onto the optical components using ink-jetting have higher thermal performance than conventional photoresist materials used in photolithographic process. Different kinds of epoxies and thermoplastics are being used in ink-jet printing tools. Ink-jet based printing can be used to print different configurations of microlenses such as convex/plano hemispherical, hemi-elliptical and square to convex-convex which are used in different optical applications. Printing a microlens on the tip of a fiber can reduce the manufacturing cost of optical fiber communication system, as this microlens will increase the acceptance angle of the laser light which can be useful in increasing the sensitivity of alignment of laser. Direct-write technologies can also be utilized in the development of medical science by fabrication of multifunctional biochemical-sensors.

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Display Industry
Slim and smart display screens are gaining potential in display market and different performance parameters are under research to reduce the cost and improve the color and resolution performance. Ink-jet printing of display materials can be alternatively used in display industry to reduce the cost as phosphors manufacturing is expensive. Deposition of color light-emitting polymers in display screen by using ink-jet printing technique is under research to improve the quality of the display screens.

Passive components
Passive components (resistors, capacitors and inductors) fabricated in different chips cover the majority area of the chip or circuit board hence limiting the performance of the device. Printed passive elements can be used alternatively to reduce the size and cost of the electronic circuitries. Imbedded passives such as resistors are being fabricated on the inner layers of circuit board with the use of direct-write techniques. Inductors and capacitors can be printed using different layers of materials. Printing insulators as dielectrics which are sandwiched between conductors as electrodes layers to form capacitors and printing a coil of conductor on printed ferrite layer end up in an inductor.

(a)

(b) Figure 3. (a) Printing process of a capacitor, (b) printing process of an inductor

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Bioactive Materials
Ink-jet printing is a hot topic for research in bioengineering field. Printing technique can be used in depositing the DNA array for the analysis and synthesis of oligonucleotides. This helps in greatly decreasing the number of fluids required for synthesis of DNA. The synthesis of peptides are quite similar to that of DNA with little bit more complexity due to the presence of amino acids.

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6.

Direct-Write Micromachining Using Laser

6.1.

Introduction

Laser plays a vital role in the development of electronics industry as it provides high peak intensity energy source, higher spectral purity and spatial coherence, etc. Lasers are used in drilling, cutting and welding at micro levels. Due to their small feature sizes, they are widely used in direct-write micromachining technologies. The production speeds of fabrication for large parts are much slower than other conventional methods because laser micromachining or miniaturization process is a serial process but its performance is much better than other mechanical systems for the small-scale prototyping, throughput rates and customization. As described in fig. 1, the performance and manufacturing speed, of laser systems gets higher to remove a blocklike feature from stainless steel, when its size decreases below 100m as compared to other mechanical systems performance which uses conventional drilling and milling.

Figure 1. Comparison of laser system with conventional mechanical system to remove a blocklike feature of different sizes. [1]

6.2.

Laser-Matter Interaction

When the laser beam incident on the surface of the solid, different complex phenomena may occur, due to that the photons of laser light can be absorbed into the

23 surface, which also results in different photophysical or photochemical processes or both, depending on the wavelength, energy and pulse of incident beam of laser. When the electrons are excited from the absorption of incident photons, two kinds of relaxation processes occur, i.e. localized and nonlocalized, depending on the involvement of part or the whole lattice, respectively, in the excitation process. Nonlocalized processes are further distributed into desorption, radiative recombination and ablation processes.

Ablation
Ablation is the most important localized process in the laser micromachining domain. When the electrons are photoexcited, they convert into kinetic energy of nuclear motion which results in the ejection of some material from the surface of solid, resulting in two different phenomena of laser-induced desorption and ablation. Desorption process has very little role in laser based direct-write technologies, while the ablation process is highly used. Ablation process is shown in fig. 2.

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of ablation process for removal of material from the surface of solid by using incident laser beam.

Best performance can be achieved by using small pulse duration of incident laser beam. Extremely well-defined boundaries can be achieved by using right ablation conditions to isolate the ablated regions from the non-exposed regions to laser beam to avoid minimal heating.

6.3.

Laser Micromachining

Different techniques are available for advanced material processing such as, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and focused ionbeam etching (FIB), but the most useful tool is laser micromachining technique for

24 material processing. Laser micromachining can be used in different applications, i.e. cutting, heat treatment, welding, etching, deposition, lithography, etc. The most important laser parameters which define the performance of micromachining are listed here, the spot size, the focus depth, and the laser beam intensity. Different types of laser sources are used in laser micromachining applications such as, Nd:YAG solid state lasers emitting pulses at 1.06m, CO2 gas lasers emitting pulses at 10.6m and excimer lasers emitting pulses at 193nm. CO2 gas lasers are not used efficiently in applications where very small feature sizes are required. There are other laser sources also available like F2 lasers, which are now used in semiconductor industry in photolithography process. To get better results from laser micromachining, it is desirable to use laser matching with the substrate. For example, using laser parameters such as wavelength, which should be completely compatible with the target material to get required results.

6.4.

Laser Micromachining Tools

Laser micromachining composed of different stages and parts as shown in the fig. 3.

Figure 3. Schematic of a laser micromachining tool, showing basic elements [1].

The relative motion of the substrate material and the laser beam is used in the laser micromachining tools used in direct-write technologies to process the material in desired shapes. This relative motion should have high precision and resolution range to produce the very small feature processing as the typical feature production range of laser micromachining is 2-200m. this relative motion includes the motion of part, motion of beam or both at the same time in some hybrid systems.

25 Video imaging is the most important part of the laser microfabrication system as it gives the monitoring of the process, alignment of features, location of the desired material part and inspection of completed operations. Different configurations are used in viewing the processing as shown in the fig. 4.

Figure 4. Different configurations of video imaging to monitor the material processing [1].

Finally, the computer provides the feature of controlling the whole process by moving the substrate or laser beam with the use of some user friendly software. Computer improves the processing of different tasks which are at micron levels and controlling of these tasks manually is not easy.

6.5.

Applications of Laser Micromachining

Three-dimensional structures can be constructed with laser micromachining by using specific conditions of ablation depths and highly absorbing substrates. Micromachining of layered materials is another industrial application of laser micromachining. Micromarking of very small components is the essential element in the development of miniaturization of electronic, medical and optical devices. Micrmarking can be achieved with high resolution by using laser micromachining.

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7.

Micrometer and Nanometer Pattern Material Transfer Technologies

and

7.1.

Introduction

Size of a body has many effects on its functionality and lots of advantages and disadvantages are always taken into account related with the size of the device. In many cases, cost of the device depends on its size. We can characterize the size scale of different devices as shown in fig. 1.

Figure 1. Size scale of the human made objects.

Micrometer and nanometer devices are manufactured three-dimensionally, and include lots of serial processes using thin-film technologies. The block diagram showing the manufactured process of small-scale devices is shown in fig. 2.

Figure 2. Block diagram of a manufactured process of small-scale devices.

There are two types of transfer technologies such as, material transfer and pattern transfer technologies. We will take a look to pattern transfer technologies and their applications.

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7.2.

Applications of Pattern Transfer Technologies

Pattern transfer technologies include lots of different areas of electronics. They are used in manufacturing of well known integrated circuits. Manufacturing of MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) also include the transferring of different layers of exact shapes and at exact locations. The developments in the printed circuit boards brought the complexity by including the different layers to imbed the resistive and capacitive components in them. The number of layers increases with the increase in the complexity of electronics device, as 50 layers of conductive and insulating materials have been patterned in the mother board of a PC. As the space becoming crucial for many consumer electronics devices like cell phone, the need of bonding the chips on the circuit boards without using packages which occupy more space has arisen. This can be done by using the solder bumps with same size and at same locations from each other to make the contact of the chip which become a package on the circuit board. This process is done by lithography as the size of the bumps is very small of submicron levels. Pattern transfer techniques are also used in thin-film magnetic heads. Microsystems related to the fluid control and manipulate its data are gaining importance. These systems include passive and active components. They are also manufactured by using lithography processes.

7.3.

Different Lithography Techniques

There are different techniques available for lithography. Optical methods are used to align the resists on wafers accurately which can decrease the cost of the chip fabrication. Extreme ultraviolet lithography is used with the wavelengths of 13nm and very small numerical aperture to improve the resolution. To improve the lithography process x-ray lithography is used. X-ray lithography at 1nm required new sources, optics, masks and resists. Electron beam direct-write lithography is used to produce the finest masks and can be used in chip production. They require bright sources of electrons. Ion beam lithography is used to repair the masks and not used for the production processes. In addition to all the conventional lithography techniques, there are some other production techniques to transfer the pattern on the substrate. LIGA (Lithography Galvanoformung Abformung) includes the sequential use of lithography,

28 electrodeposition and molding. Very thick resists are used with additional processing steps are used in LIGA. Thin resists with different masks are used in Lithography induced self-construction (LISC).

7.4.

Applications of Material Transfer Technologies

The pattern transfer technology applications depend on the characterization of the used technology, whereas the material transfer technology uses programmable methods that determine its applications. Pattern transfer technologies are used to manufacture the products at very high rates, while material transfer technology has low productivity rates, hence these techniques are suitable for rapid prototyping.

7.5.

Methods of Material Transfer Technologies

Different old and new methods for bulk micromachining processes are common in subtractive material transfer techniques. The deeply etching into the bulk of the material is important. There are lots of methods to make high aspect ratio structures in different materials. some use methods of wet chemical etching technique which is older method. Other are also called plasma or dry processes. Other methods of subtractive material transfer technique include electrochemical, electrodischarge and ultrasonic machining. Next technique for material transferring is programmable subtractive technique. The first ever programmable technique for removing the material from a work piece (or substrate) was engraver. Different techniques are used in this subtractive technique. Focused beams of laser can be used to remove the materials from the substrate by using processes like melting of the area or plasma formation. The process depends on the parameters of the incident layer beam, i.e. intensity of the laser beam, power density etc. Different kinds of beams are used in this process depends on the required removal of the material, electron, photon and ion beams are used. Another method to remove the materials from the substrate is to use the fine hard powder propelled in a gas jet at substrate. This method is known as abrasive jets. For fixed pattern additive material transfer, many options are available such as masked evaporation, screen printing and microcontact printing.

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8.

References

[1] Direct-Write Technologies for Rapid Prototyping Applications by Alberto Piqu