Abstract
- This paper presents the optics design for a microscale Selective Laser Sintering (μ-SLS) system that aims to allow large areas of nanoparticles to be sintered simultaneously while still maintaining micrometer scale feature resolutions in order to improve the throughput of the microscale additive manufacturing process. The optics design is shown to be able to sinter a 2.3 mm by 1.3 mm area of metal nanoparticles that have been spread into a ~400 nm thick layer with a feature resolution of ~3 μm in a single shot. The optical resolution of this system is shown to be ~1.2 μm indicating that only about 2-3 pixels are needed to form a good sintered part. In addition, using the optical design presented in this paper, it is estimated that the μ-SLS system should be able to achieve a volumetric throughput of ~63 mm3/hr, making this process one of the highest throughput processes available today for the microscale additive manufacturing of three-dimensional metal structures.
Highlights
Micro-additive manufacturing (AM) techniques have a multitude of applications in many fields including the aerospace, medical device, automotive and semiconductor industries [1,2]
This study presents the optics design for a micro-scale selective laser sintering (μ-SLS) process that enables the sintering of a large area with 1μm feature resolution
This study demonstrates the realization of ≈1 μm optical resolution alongwith the capability to sinter a large area at once so that it can be employed in a high-volume production system
Summary
Micro-additive manufacturing (AM) techniques have a multitude of applications in many fields including the aerospace, medical device, automotive and semiconductor industries [1,2]. Focusing on the semiconductor packaging industry, the rate of miniaturization of packaging blocks such as solder bumps, is trailing the miniaturization of transistors due to the limitations of the capabilities of current back end of line fabrication processes [3]. This study presents the optics design for a micro-scale selective laser sintering (μ-SLS) process that enables the sintering of a large area with 1μm feature resolution. In addition to the optical system design presented in this study, the μ-SLS system includes a spreader system and a sample transfer, alignment & metrology system to produce three dimensional structures with the desired feature resolution. An overview of the system with process details and scheme is part of a working study by the authors [32]
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