Inkjet printing electroless copper plating on aluminum nitride substrate

Abstract

Aluminum nitride (AlN) as a ceramic substrate with high thermal conductivity and mechanic strength is highly desired for high-powder density electrode devices. However, precisely metalating of AlN in an environmental friendly way is still challenging. Here, we develop a inkjet printing electroless plating technology for fabricating cupper electrode on AlN substrate. The copper ink prepared by CuSO4·5 H2O is firstly inkjet printed on AlN substrate followed reduced by a dimethylamine borane solution to form a copper seed. The AlN substrate with the copper seed layer was immersed into the formaldehyde-free environment-friendly electroless plating solution to deposit the copper layer. The prepared copper electrode demonstrated a smooth surface with robust tangential peel strength reaches 302.67 N·cm−1 and excellent conductivity to 8.70 μΩ cm. Furthermore, AlN substrate after 8 h electroless copper plating has excellent heat dissipation performance. Therefore, the inkjet printing electroless plating technology provide a promising route for scalable and precise metalating the ceramic substrates.