Two-Stage Method of Manufacturing Passive Conducting Structures by Laser Decomposition of AlN Ceramics

This paper presents a two-stage method for fabricating passive conductive structures of arbitrary geometry on aluminum nitride (AlN) ceramic substrates via laser decomposition using nanosecond pulses of Nd:YAG fiber laser (λ = 1062 nm). We developed a two-stage process which allows one to create elements of low resistance and produce permanent joints to the obtained structures. Studies of laser decomposition of AlN under variable process conditions have shown that effective decomposition of the AlN ceramic surface layer should be carried out in an atmosphere of argon with laser beam fluence well above the ablation threshold. Notably, both processing stages were performed under a continuous flow of argon. A method of producing permanent joints to the obtained conductive structures was also developed. The electrical properties of the resulting conductive paths were evaluated over a temperature range of 20–300 K.