METHOD OF FABRICATING ELECTRICALLY ISOLATED CONDUCTORS USING FLEXOGRAPHIC VOIDING
A method of fabricating isolated conductors using flexographic voiding includes disposing a base pattern of catalytic material on a substrate, flexographically printing a void pattern of dielectric ink that resists metallization on a portion of the base pattern, and metallizing exposed portions of the catalytic material that are not covered by the dielectric ink.
1 . A method of fabricating isolated conductors using flexographic voiding comprising:
disposing a base pattern of catalytic material on a substrate;
flexographically printing a void pattern of dielectric ink that resists metallization on a portion of the base pattern; and
metallizing exposed portions of the catalytic material that are not covered by the dielectric ink.
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
curing the printed void pattern.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern is disposed on the substrate using a flexographic printing process.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern is disposed on the substrate using gravure printing, inkjet printing, rotary printing, or stamping.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern is disposed on the substrate using pattern-based deposition, chemical vapor deposition, electro deposition, epitaxy, physical vapor deposition, or casting.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern is disposed on the substrate using optical photolithography, UV-based photolithography, e-beam lithography, ion-beam lithography, x-ray lithography, interference lithography, scanning probe lithography, imprint lithography, or magneto lithography.
7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the catalytic material comprises a catalytic ink.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern comprises a mesh formed by an image of a plurality of parallel conductive lines oriented in a first direction and an image of a plurality of parallel conductive lines oriented in a second direction.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern comprises solid fill pattern.
10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the base pattern comprises a cross-hatched fill pattern.
11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the void pattern comprises a plurality channel break voids.
12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the void pattern comprises a plurality of conductor voids.
13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the dielectric ink comprises a non-catalytic ink.
14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the dielectric ink comprises a non-catalytic ink that resists metallization.
15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the dielectric ink is color matched to a color of a metal used to metallize the exposed portions of the catalytic material.
16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein metallizing the exposed portions of the catalytic material comprises electrolessly plating the exposed portions of the catalytic material with a metal.
17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the metal comprises one or more of copper, nickel, palladium, other platinum group metals, bismuth, gold, silver, cobalt, chromium, composites, or alloys thereof.
18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein metallizing the exposed portions of the catalytic material comprises electrolessly plating the exposed portions of the catalytic material with a first metal and electrolessly plating the plated first metal with a second metal.
19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the first metal comprises copper and the second metal comprises palladium.
20 . The method of claim 1 , wherein metallizing the exposed portions of the catalytic material comprises immersion bathing the exposed portions of the catalytic material.