High-resolution deposition of conductive and insulating materials at micrometer scale on complex substrates

Additive manufacturing transforms the landscape of modern microelectronics. Recent years have witnessed significant progress in the fabrication of 2D planar structures and free-standing 3D architectures. In this work, we present a much-needed intermediary approach: we introduce the Ultra-Precise Deposition (UPD) technology, a versatile platform for material deposition at micrometer scale on complex substrates. The versality of this approach is related to three aspects: material to be deposited (conductive or insulating), shape of the printed structures (lines, dots, arbitrary shapes), as well as type and shape of the substrate (rigid, flexible, hydrophilic, hydrophobic, substrates with pre-existing features). The process is based on the direct, maskless deposition of high-viscosity materials using narrow printing nozzles with the internal diameter in the range from 0.5 to 10 µm. For conductive structures we developed highly concentrated non-Newtonian pastes based on silver, copper, or gold nanoparticles. In this case, the feature size of the printed structures is in the range from 1 to 10 µm and their electrical conductivity is up to 40% of the bulk value, which is the record conductivity for metallic structures printed with spatial resolution below 10 µm. This result is the effect of the synergy between the printing process itself, formulation of the paste, and the proper sintering of the printed structures. We demonstrate a pathway to print such fine structures on complex substrates. We argue that this versatile and stable process paves the way for a widespread use of additive manufacturing for microfabrication.