Characterization of the Integration of Additively Manufactured All-Aromatic Polyimide and Conductive Direct-Write Silver Inks

Hybridizing additive manufacturing (AM) structures and direct write (DW) deposition of conductive traces enables the design and physical creation of integrated, complex, and conformal electronics such as embedded electronics and complex routing on a fully AM structure. Although this hybridization has a promising outlook, there are several key AM substrate-related limitations that limit the final performance of these hybridized AM-DW electronic parts. These limitations include low-temperature processability (leading to high trace resistivity) and poor surface finish (leading to electronic shorts and disconnections). Recently discovered ultraviolet-assisted direct ink write (UV-DIW) all-aromatic polyimide (PI) provides an opportunity to address these previous shortcomings previously due to its high-temperature stability (450C) and superior surface finish (relative to other AM processes).

The primary goal of this thesis is to characterize the integration of this UV-DIW PI with DW-printed conductive inks as a means for obtaining high-performance hybrid AM-DW electronics. This goal has been achieved through an investigation into the increased temperature stability of AM PI on the conductivity and adhesion of DW extrusion and aerosol jet (AJ) silver inks, determining the dielectric constant and dissipation factor of processed UV-DIW PI, and determining the achievable microwave application performance of UV-DIW PI. These performance measurements are compared to commercially-available PI film and relative to existing AM substrates, such as ULTEM 1010.

The temperature stability of UV-DIW PI enabled higher-temperature post-processing for the printed silver traces, which decreased DIW trace resistivity from 14.94±0.55 times the value of bulk silver at 160 °C to 2.16±0.028 times the resistivity of bulk silver at 375 °C, and AJ silver trace resistivity from 5.27±0.013 times the resistivity of bulk silver at 200 °C to 1.95±0.15 times the resistivity of bulk silver at 350 °C. The adhesion of these traces was not negatively affected by higher processing temperatures, and the traces performed similarly on UV-DIW PI and commercial PI. Furthermore, at similar thicknesses, UV-DIW PI was found to have a similar dielectric constant and dissipation factor to commercial Dupont Kapton PI film from 1 kHz to 1 MHz, indicating its ability to perform highly as a dielectric electronics substrate. Finally, the decrease in resistivity was able to decrease the gap in microwave stripline transmission line performance when compared with ULTEM 1010 processed at 200°C, with peak 10 GHz S21 loss differences decreasing from 2.46 dB to 1.32 dB after increasing the UV-DIW processing temperature from 200 °C to 400°C.