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Pulsed Light Sintering

The printed electronics market is in a transition as developments in new materials drive applications from R&D toward production. Functionally conductive inks and coatings are being manufactured with nanoparticles for use with low-temperature, low cost substrates such as paper, PET and polyethylene films.

Silver, gold and more recently, lower-cost copper nanoparticle inks are available on the market for applications in inkjets and screen printers. Printing on flexible substrates such as printed circuit boards, at room temperature, is becoming a reality.


The challenge facing producers of evolving nanoparticle inks is how to sinter or anneal these inks at substrate temperatures typically below 160 C°. Pulsed light technology from Xenon Corporation offers a solution. The high peak pulse, delivered in milliseconds, quickly heats the inks and not the substrate. The high energy removes the solvent and leaves just the metal nanoparticles which are sintered. The substrate is not affected by the pulsed light. One advantage of the speed by which the sintering occurs is that copper ink is cured so quickly it does not develop an oxide layer that can typically form on the surface, thus improving conductivity. For a more in depth look at Xenon’s current thinking behind Photonic or Pulsed Light Sintering check out the Process Overview page.

To address the needs of this growing market Xenon have developed the SINTERON Series of tools for research, product development and tool integration. Building on the flexibility of Xenon’s existing RC-800 series, the Sinteron tools offers the ability to customize a system to match the curing needs of a range of nanoparticle inks and substrates.

Xenon currently offers a number of Sinteron systems to fit various requirements.

The Sinteron 500 is a benchtop system producing pulse energies up to 830J with pulse duration of ~500 microseconds. This system is generally suited to silver inks.

The Sinteron 2000 has a floor standing electronics cabinet. It can produce pulse energies up to 1500J and has four selectable pulse durations from 500 microseconds to 2000 microseconds.

The latest development is the Sinteron 2010. Like the Sinteron 2000 it also has a floor standing electronics cabinet. The Sinteron 2010 can produce pulse energies up to 2000J and has the ability to produce pulse durations from 100 microseconds to 2000 microseconds in steps of 20 microseconds.

Making life easier for the end user, the LS-845 Linear Stage integrates the LH-840 16” linear lamp housing to provide a single axis linear motion for area sintering applications using the SINTERON 500, 2000 or 2010. Users can select both the pulse energy level and the pulse duration delivered to the flashlamp using one of the SINTERON systems.