Method for manufacturing electrical conductors, and electrical conductors manufactured according to same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10828486-B2
Application number	US-201615765987-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 28, 2016
Priority date	Oct 30, 2015
Publication date	Nov 10, 2020
Grant date	Nov 10, 2020

Abstract

A method for manufacturing an electrical conductor includes: depositing a solid metal conductive layer or film on a substrate 30; depositing a liquid metal on the solid layer; and allowing the liquid metal and the solid layer 40 to alloy by diffusion of the liquid metal into the solid layer or film so as to form a solid conductive layer or film of the alloy; as well as allowing the liquid metal to further infiltrate the alloy so as to form percolating paths and/or droplets of the liquid metal in the the solid conductive layer or film, thus forming a biphasic conductive layer.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for manufacturing an electrical conductor, said method comprising:
depositing a solid metal layer on a substrate;
depositing a liquid metal on said solid metal layer;
allowing said liquid metal and said solid metal layer to form an alloy by diffusion of said liquid metal into said solid metal layer so as to form a solid conductive layer of said alloy;
allowing said liquid metal to further wet and infiltrate said alloy so as to form percolating paths of said liquid metal in said solid conductive layer, thus forming a biphasic conductive layer comprising said alloy as a solid phase and said percolating paths of said liquid metal as a liquid phase dispersed in the solid phase;
allowing said liquid metal to further accumulate into bulges, locally yet randomly, on or within said biphasic conductive layer; and
controlling a ratio n between a total number of atoms of said liquid metal and a total number of atoms of said solid metal in said biphasic layer to be between 2 and 50.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said liquid metal is deposited on said solid metal layer by thermal vapour deposition of said liquid metal.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said liquid metal comprises one of gallium or a gallium-based alloy.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said solid metal layer is sputtered on said substrate.

5. The method as claimed claim 1 , wherein said solid metal layer is made of one of Au, Pd, Pt, Ir, or an alloy thereof.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said solid metal layer has a thickness between 10 and 1000 nm.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said substrate is an elastomeric substrate.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said method further comprises patterning said biphasic conductive layer or film so as to form at least one biphasic strip.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8 , wherein said biphasic conductive layer is patterned using one of stencil and photolithography.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said method further comprises encapsulating said biphasic conductive layer by forming an encapsulation layer on said biphasic conductive layer.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10 , said method further comprising forming at least one through via in said encapsulation layer so as to expose at least a portion of said biphasic conductive layer.

Assignees

• Ecole Polytechnique Fed Lausanne Epfl

Inventors

• Hirsch Arthur
• Michaud Hadrien
• Minev Ivan Rusev
• Lacour Stephanie P

Classifications

• C22C1/12

  by processing in a semi-solid state, e.g. holding the alloy in the solid-liquid phase · CPC title

• A61B2562/166

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• A61B5/25

  Bioelectric electrodes therefor · CPC title

• C22C28/00

  Alloys based on a metal not provided for in groups C22C5/00 - C22C27/00 · CPC title

• H05K2201/0391

  Using different types of conductors · CPC title