Present status and future outlook of selective metallization for electronics industry by laser irradiation to metal nanoparticles

Recently an alternative to conventional methods based on vacuum processes such as evaporation or sputtering is desired to reduce the energy consumption and the environmental impact. Printed electronics has been developed as a one of the candidates, which is based on wet processes using soluble functional materials such as organic semiconductors, inorganic nanomaterials, organic-inorganic hybrids, and so on. Although inkjet printing has been studied widely as a core technology of printed electronics, the limitation of resolution is around 20 micrometer. The combination of the inkjet printing with other selective metallization process is necessary because the resolution of several micrometers is required in some optical and electrical devices. The laser processing has emerged as an attractive technique in microelectronics because of the fascinating features such as high resolution, high degree of flexibility to control the resolution and size of the micro-patterns, high speed, and a little environmental pollution. In this paper, the present status and future outlook of selective metallization for interconnection and the formation of transparent conductive film based on the laser processing using metal nanoparticles were reported. The laser beam irradiation to metal nanoparticles causes the fast and efficient sintering by plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticle, where the absorbed energy is confined in a nanoparticle and the nanoparticle acts as a nano-heater. The laser irradiation to metal nanoparticles was applied to the laser direct writing of metal wiring and micropatterns using silver and copper nanoparticles.