3-D Printing of Opto-Electronic Components on Flexible Substrates

Not Available The technique of screen printing has been demonstrated to be of practical benefit in numerous engineering applications. Over the past two decades, these benefits have been widely recognized by the electronics industry, as evidenced by the flourishing fields of screen-printed thick-film electronics. Multilayer circuits are now manufactured by the sequential deposition of conductive and resistive paste patterns and the deposition of solder bumps and epoxies to secure precisely mounted components. We propose to apply these advanced screen printing methods to large-area opto-electronic applications. In Phase 1, we demonstrated the feasibility of screen printing three-dimensional optical components on a flexible substrate using electroformed stencils, where feasibility was defined as being able to print fine-pitch 3-D optical features of precise dimension, and being able to print a second set of features over the first without damaging either. In Phase 2, we will develop several precision printing techniques required to demonstrate a multilayer device on a flexible polymer substrate for consumer-electronics display applications.