Fabrication of polyetheretherketone (PEEK)-based 3D electronics with fine resolution by a hydrophobic treatment assisted hybrid additive manufacturing method

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) is a free-form technology that shows great potential in the integrated creation of three-dimensional (3D) electronics. However, the fabrication of 3D conformal circuits that fulfill the requirements of high service temperature, high conductivity and high resolution remains a challenge. In this paper, a hybrid AM method combining the fused deposition modeling (FDM) and hydrophobic treatment assisted laser activation metallization (LAM) was proposed for manufacturing the polyetheretherketone (PEEK)-based 3D electronics, by which the conformal copper patterns were deposited on the 3D-printed PEEK parts, and the adhesion between them reached the 5B high level. Moreover, the 3D components could support the thermal cycling test from −55 °C to 125 °C for more than 100 cycles. Particularly, the application of a hydrophobic coating on the FDM-printed PEEK before LAM can promote an ideal catalytic selectivity on its surface, not affected by the inevitable printing borders and pores in the FDM-printed parts, then making the resolution of the electroless plated copper lines improved significantly. In consequence, Cu lines with width and spacing of only 60 µ m and 100 µ m were obtained on both as-printed and after-polished PEEK substrates. Finally, the potential of this technique to fabricate 3D conformal electronics was demonstrated.