A Post-Treatment Method to Enhance the Property of Aerosol Jet Printed Electric Circuit on 3D Printed Substrate

Aerosol jet printing of electronic devices is increasingly attracting interest in recent years. However, low capability and high resistance are still limitations of the printed electronic devices. In this paper, we introduce a novel post-treatment method to achieve a high-performance electric circuit. The electric circuit was printed with aerosol jet printing method on an ULTEM substrate. The ULTEM substrate was fabricated by the Fused Deposition Modelling method. After post-treatment, the electrical resistance of the printed electric circuit was changed from 236 mΩ to 47 mΩ and the electric property was enhanced. It was found that the reduction of electric resistance was caused by surface property changes. Different surface analysis methods including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to understand the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results showed that the microsurface structure remained the same original structure before and after treatment. It was found that the surface carbon concentration was significantly increased after treatment. Detailed analysis showed that the C-C bond increased obviously after treatment. The change of electrical resistance was found to be limited to the material’s surface. After polishing, the circuit resistance was changed back to its original value. As the electric circuit is the basic element of electric devices, the proposed method enables the fabrication of high performance devices such as capacitors, strain gauge, and other sensors, which has potential applications in many areas such as industrial, aerospace, and military usage.