Roll-to-Roll 3D Printing of Flexible Multilayer Printed Circuit Boards
- ALT LLC, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
The purpose of this Phase I SBIR project is to investigate roll-to-roll multilayer high-resolution printing processes for additive and subtractive manufacturing of large-format nuclear physics detector structures such as gaseous electron multipliers (GEMs). Such devices are key components in a number of different systems supporting nuclear physics experiments, in particular, DOE supported national laboratories such as Jefferson Laboratories, Michigan State/FRIB, Brookhaven, and CERN would benefit from a commercial availability of particle detectors. Experimental high-energy physics (HEP) programs, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RICH), the International Linear Collider (ILC) and others, are driving new and advanced detector concepts.This automated process technology will enable the next generation of micro-pattern gaseous detectors or cathode chamber arrays suitable for high-energy detectors in Nuclear Physics experiments. Today, GEM structures are generally fabricated using standard photolithography processes which become increasingly difficult to implement on large form factor substrates with high-repeatability and high-resolution. CERN based GEM structures often utilize approximately 50um holes on 140micron pitch with 2mil thick polyimide. These structures benefit from multiple cascades, for instance in triple layer GEM configurations. Also, large area micromegas detectors require readout strip alignment within 30 µm and surface planarity within 80 µm precision. Next generation structures have the potential for providing higher-gain and higher detection resolution which will require higher resolution patterning and tight control over the alignment of metal and holes in the dielectric. The proposed automated system reduces the cost of full assembly over traditional photolithography approaches. In this effort, different approaches were considered with respect to realizing multilayer stacks of dielectrics and conductive materials with sufficient resolution to meet and exceed the state-of-the-art today. A Phase I hardware prototype was developed to investigate the feasibility of additive and subtractive processes necessary for large form factor high-resolution patterning. An initial Hardware prototype was developed to facilitate feasibility studies to evaluate both additive and subtractive processes for patterning of conductive and dielectric layers. The system and processes were evaluated for feasibility with respect to speed, performance, cost, and resolution parameters. The proposed modular low-cost manufacturing tool enables automated assembly including conductive trace deposition, dielectric deposition, laser and thermal sintering and support materials to enable multilayer stacks to be fabricated. The software was developed to control the linear actuators, galvanometer control and pulsing of the laser input as well as generate parametric metal patterns where the pitch and radius can be specified for hole arrays and connectors and cathode arrays can be defined with variables corresponding to geometric parameters. There are many potential applications for the research. The main goal is to accommodate large format printing of GEM foils and printing other structures such as anodes/cathodes. However, there are many other applications such as multilayer flexible printed circuit boards (PCBs) to be built with lower cost. The electronics industry is moving towards high density interconnects (HDI) and finer geometry PCBs. Flexible PCBs [1] are particularly important in consumer electronics [1] and the wearable market [2] . Medical imaging is also an important application for GEM structures [3].
- Research Organization:
- ALT LLC, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0017177
- OSTI ID:
- 1411319
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase I)
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-ALT-0017177
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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