Recently, the cryogenic biological and medical research team of the Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has made series of new developments in the field of liquid-phase 3D metal printing and rapid manufacturing of functional electronic devices on the basis of years of liquid metal research work. The articles were published in well-known publications and caused important repercussions at home and abroad.
As we all know, metal 3D printing is the difficult point and commanding point in today's additive manufacturing field. Due to technical bottlenecks and cost constraints, existing equipment is generally limited to industrial-grade applications, and it is not yet possible to achieve mass popularity and popularity. To date, metal 3D printing developed by the predecessors has been mainly focused on high-melting-point metals. Usually, additive manufacturing is achieved by means of high-temperature melt molding or laser powder sintering. Generally, air cooling is used, but the target part is in this processing mode. Cooling and solidification are slow, printing takes a long time, and manufacturing costs are high.
To this end, the physics and chemistry institute team proposed a liquid metal 3D printing method that is different from the traditional method to rapidly fabricate conductive metal devices at room temperature. The corresponding research was published as a cover article in Science China Technological Sciences (Wang and Liu, Vol. 57, pp. 1721, 2014) and was selected as a hot topic. Immediately afterwards, this work attracted widespread attention internationally and was successively referred to as phys. Over 60 English media and professional websites such as .org, asianscientist, eurekalert, nanowerk, softpedia, spacedaily, 3ders, facebook, etc. have reported or reviewed.
In the research paper entitled "Liquid phase 3D printing for rapidly manufacturing conductive metal objects with low melting point alloy ink", the authors first proposed The academic thought of realizing 3D printing in the liquid-phase cooling environment adopts a new generation of metal ink developed to directly manufacture three-dimensional metal components in several kinds of solutions such as water and alcohol. Compared with the conventional air-cooling method, the liquid-phase cooling printing has the advantages of quick cooling and forming speed for the molten metal droplets, and can avoid or effectively reduce the air-to-metal oxidation and the like. This method breaks through the inherent technical aspects of traditional 3D printing and is expected to play a role in the future of functional device rapid manufacturing.
At the same time, for the traditional 3D printing, it is difficult to take into account the large differences in the melting point between metal and common ink, and it is difficult to couple the lack of print assembly. The research team also explored the compatibility and printability of different functional materials, and thus developed a The 3D electromechanical hybrid printing technology designed to directly fabricate end-function devices was published online in Science China Technological Sciences (Wang and Liu, Vol. 57, doi:10.1007/s11431-014-5657-3, 2014).
The authors confirm for the first time in a paper entitled "Compatible hybrid 3D printing of metal and nonmetal inks for direct manufacture of end functional devices". The feasibility of alternately printing and assembling functional devices using low-melting-point metallic inks (used for the manufacture of electronic components) and non-metallic inks (used for the manufacture of supporting or insulating packaging substrates), through comparative testing of the material's thermal fluid properties and conductivity, The printability and matching characteristics of inks with different melting point ranges were clarified, and the corresponding printing and assembly processes were demonstrated with the manufacture of an LED light emitting device.
So far, conductive metals and non-conductor inks (such as polymers) in traditional 3D printing have been difficult to mix and print at a time due to a difference of several hundred degrees or even nearly 1000°C. This has long been a major technical challenge in the industry. The above-mentioned work of the Institute of Physics and Chemistry opens a new direction for hybrid printing. In the future, more compatible materials and ink categories can be developed, thus making it possible to automate the manufacture and assembly of terminal functional devices. In this sense, this technology is equivalent to multi-ink "color printing" of electronic devices. It is foreseeable that hybrid printing will become one of the inevitable directions in the future 3D printing technology.
In addition to metal 3D printing, the physics and chemistry team has also advanced its previously established liquid metal printed electronics technology. Considering that the room-temperature metal ink is printed after being printed out of the circuit, if the package is not timely, it will be easily smeared because it is in a liquid state, and the team has explored a method for realizing the curing circuit printing. They introduced a niobium-based alloy printing ink with a melting point higher than room temperature (about 58.3°C), revealed the problem of adhesion between the ink and a variety of substrate materials, and developed a corresponding heating print head based on the liquid phase developed in the earlier period. Metal printers (Zheng et al., Scientific Reports, vol.4, pp. 4588, 20142014) directly printed solid-state circuits.
In this method, the fine circuit printed by the molten metal ink rapidly solidifies under the cooling of the air, thereby forming the electronic pattern and the functional device, and the processing is very convenient. In particular, the solid-state circuit realized by this process is superior to the liquid state. The circuit is easy to recycle. The corresponding study was published online in Proceedings of The Royal Society A (Wang and Liu, Printing low melting point alloy ink to directly make solidified circuit or functional device with heating pen, online press, 2014) and was selected as the cover article.
In general, printed electronics for liquid metals is gradually developing in depth, demonstrating increasingly important application values. To identify the application of this new technology in the manufacturing of consumer electronics, the team set out to investigate the direct printing and assembly of a series of typical functional devices. In an article published on Circuit World titled "Using Liquid Metal Printers to Directly Print and Assemble FM radio at the user end via liquid metal printer, Circuit World, online" (Yang and Liu, Direct printing and assembly of FM radio at the user end via liquid metal printer, Circuit World, online In the paper of press, 2014), the research team demonstrated the process of printing, assembling, and applying FM radio, and received the broadcast signal of the corresponding frequency band.
At the same time, considering the development potential of liquid metal printed electronics in the rapid manufacture of energy harvesters, the research team proposed the concept of a printable thermoelectric generator based on liquid metal electronic ink and developed corresponding integrated devices, especially The 镓-CONK thermocouples and 镓-镓-indium alloy thermocouples represent the system's evaluation of the thermoelectric properties of liquid-solid, liquid-liquid thermoelectric reactors using the liquid metal direct writing method, and screening for suitable thermoelectric properties. Pairing materials; By integrating and optimizing 20 pairs of 镓-CONK thermocouples, the resulting thermoelectric generator output voltage is amplified to 1.70V and power is 742.9μW, which can drive LED lamps.
These basic and applied experiments prove the practical value of the liquid metal direct writing thermoelectric generator. The corresponding paper was published in "China Science E Series" (Li Haiyan et al., Printable Thermoelectric Generator Based on Liquid Metals and Performance Evaluation, Vol.44, pp. 407, 2014). In particular, in view of the increasing importance of liquid metal printed electronic ink materials, the research team was also invited to comment on this in an article (Wang Lei, Liu Jing, Progress in Liquid Metal Printing E-ink Research, Imaging Science and Photochemistry, Vol. .32, pp. 382, ​​2014; cover article) to promote related research.
For more than a decade, the physics and chemistry research team has continued to carry out basic exploration and technological innovation around several theoretical and technological frontiers of open-ended or low-melting liquid metal, and successfully developed a series of product-level liquid metal electronic printers and 3D printing equipment. And it has begun to provide some information about businesses. Next, the team will focus on promoting the scale of industrialization of the corresponding instruments to meet the rapid growth of the needs of users at home and abroad.
The above research was partially funded by the research fund of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Fund.
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