A scalable Additive Manufacturing Technology for Large Area Printed Circuit Boards

The goal of this SBIR project is to develop a scalable additive manufacturing technology for large area, multiple layer printed circuit boards and innovative novel micro-pattern gaseous detector (MPGD) architectures based on our proprietary confined electro-plating 3D printer to fabricate high conductivity copper features at room temperature. One of the key advantages of this technology is 3-D fabrication of both plastic and metallic features in the same 3-D printer, enabling many innovative devices and products to be manufactured. Phase I experimentally achieved the following technical objectives: Feasibility experiments for the confined electro-plating 3D printer technology (modeling, hardware and software) including high speed fabrication of various size copper interconnects, characterization of electrical and mechanical properties, fabrication of laser drilled holes in kapton & mylar sheets, and design of a scalable 3D printer design for domestically manufacturing detector PCBs up to 5x5 meter detectors for NP community. Photos below show various aspects of these successful results. Use of the proposed technology to fabricate innovative, higher performance micro-pattern gaseous detector (MPGD) architectures (shown below) recently proposed by NSCL-MSU, which could not be fabricated by traditional manufacturing technologies. Room temperature fabrication of high conductivity copper interconnects on 3D printed plastic parts, enabling for the first time, printing of metallic and plastic parts in a single low cost 3D printer. During the proposed Phase II, the UHV team proposes to accomplish the following tasks: (i) Complete the design, assembly and operation of a 5m x 5m PCB printer with ~100 print heads, with an ultimate goal of establishing a domestic source of large area PCB foils for NP detectors, (ii) develop and life test large capacity print heads for copper and other materials, (iii) characterization of electrical and mechanical properties of 3D printed metal & plastic features, (iv) modeling, simulation, fabrication and testing of novel micro-pattern gaseous detector (MPGD) architectures and their integration in the 3D printed PCBs, and (v) fabrication and testing of large area PCBs and detectors.