(512) 491-9500   info@novacentrix.com

Follow Us                 

NovaCentrix Blog

PulseForge processing of 3D printed devices with conductive filaments

Oct 23, 2020 10:37:03 AM / by Harry Chou posted in Photonic Curing, printed electronics, printed flexible electronics, 3D printing, Conductive filaments, Electrical performance 3D printed

0 Comments

As a team, we love to highlight and share the work we see being done by researchers using NovaCentrix equipment and materials. While we regularly do this internally, my hope in sharing and writing about this recently published work for a broader audience is that it helps spread some interest in new tech, as well as bring attention to these great results. Researchers at the Army Research Laboratory and Duke University have shown that PulseForge curing can dramatically improve the electrical performance of 3D printed conductive filament composite materials.

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has seen commercial efforts over several decades with a quick rise in interest over the past several years. A Gartner analysis from 2019 showed a 300% growth in enterprise 3D printer manufacturers over the preceding 3 years. Aerospace and medical device industries were among the first to create real value by using additive manufactur

ing to reduce weight and consolidate the assembly of components. Their success has paved the way for many other industries to evaluate new 3D printing techniques for their own processes.

Read More

The evolution of photonic curing

Sep 29, 2020 11:00:00 AM / by Kurt A. Schroder, CTO, NovaCentrix posted in Photonic Curing, flexible electronics

1 Comment

Photonic curing is the high temperature processing of thin films using a flashlamp. When this processing is performed on a low temperature substrate, such as plastic or paper, a significantly higher temperature can be attained in the film versus an oven without damaging the substrate. This is due to two effects: 1) thermal processes exponentially progress with increasing temperature and 2 ) thermal damage to a polymer substrate generally takes a finite amount of time. Within a range, the shorter the time, the higher the temperature a material can take without damage. In the case of a polymer or paper
substrate, the ultimate temperature one can reach is right below its gasification temperature. The result is that an intense pulse of light can process a thin absorbing film on a low temperature substrate in only a few hundred microseconds as effectively or better than 10 minutes in an oven. As the substrate generally absorbs less of the light energy from the flashlamp than the targeted film, the film can be selectively printed and only the film is heated. That is, photonic curing is an automatically registering curing process. Consequently, even though photonic curing is very high in power, it is fundamentally a low energy process. Over the past 15 years, photonic curing has progressed far beyond the laboratory sintering of metal traces on plastic and paper and is now extensively used in many processes in the high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of consumer electronics.

Read More

PulseForge® tools enabling production of perovskite solar cells

Aug 11, 2020 2:08:18 PM / by Wen Liu posted in Photonic Curing, Perovskite Solar Cells

0 Comments

Perovskites are a group of organometallic/all-inorganic halides with chemical formula ABX3 in perovskite crystal structure1. Considered as a next-generation photovoltaic (PV) material, they combine strong light absorption with superior carrier transport2 and tunable bandgaps3.

Read More

Photonic curing and soldering

Apr 13, 2020 9:20:33 PM / by Rudy Ghosh posted in Photonic Soldering, Photonic Curing

2 Comments

How Does the Photonic Curing Process Work?

Light energy incident on a body will be absorbed and heat up the object. The light-matter interaction determines what fraction of light is reflected back, transmitted through or absorbed by the body. The fraction of light absorbed can be guessed by the color of the body (darker material absorbs more light). Light that is absorbed by the body is mostly converted to heat and shows up as an increase in its temperature. That’s why wearing a black shirt in the middle of a Texas summer isn’t the most comfortable thing to do.

Read More