Rapid Electronic Interconnection Across the Glass Boundary Edge for Sustainable and Lean Electronics Manufacturing

Herein, a rapid, eco-friendly, digital printing method is proposed for directly interconnecting individual electronics formed on the front and back planes of glass substrates, across the boundary edge, to obtain bezel- and soldering-free monolithic electronics. Laser filament scanning sintering, which is characterized by rapid scanning with a long and narrow laser spot with an aspect ratio of 500, allows for the selective formation of the electrode along the glass edge without pattern fluctuation. In this study, a novel dual-mode concurrent sintering interaction using a NIR laser filament beam, whereby nanoparticle sintering begins from the outer surface and the interface with the substrate, facilitates the device fabrication with high-resolution electrodes of 10 μm width on very rough and steeply curved edge surfaces at an ultrahigh speed of 3 m/s. This outstanding performance is accomplished by the combination of the effect of mild surface absorption of the NIR laser by a layer of Ag nanoparticles (1st mode) and intensive near-field surface scattering of the transmitting laser light (2nd mode). To intuitively demonstrate the feasibility of sustainable manufacturing of monolithic electronics, we successfully fabricated a workable bezel- and soldering-free LED panel, energy-supplied by a battery mounted on the rear plane, without the use of additional interconnection components.