Additive Manufacturing With Strontium Hexaferrite-Photoresist Composite

Millimeter-wave components, such as circulators and isolators, frequently use magnetic fields to break the symmetry of the signal propagation and provide unidirectional signal transmission. Although effective, these components have not seen the level of miniaturization of other millimeter-wave components, primarily due to the discrete nature of the magnets used in the components. Using circulators in the 40–50 GHz range as a motivating application, requirements arise for the deposited films, namely, immunity to eddy currents, sufficient magnetization to act as self-biasing magnets, and out-of-plane orientation of the self-biasing field. Based on these required properties, hexaferrite materials are selected for their strong magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) and low conductance. The difficulty in integrating these components monolithically with monolithic microwave-integrated circuits (MMIC) originates from the incompatibility of crystal structure with standard semiconductor materials and process conditions. Additive manufacturing using a composite of strontium hexaferrite (SrFe12O19) particles and photoresist has been chosen as a method to overcome the difficulties of integrating hexaferrite material to semiconductor substrates. Due to their large internal anisotropy field, the particles of strontium hexaferrite tend to rotate toward the field direction instead of changing magnetization direction under application of an external magnetic field (less than the anisotropy field). We have developed a method for 3-D printing composites of high strontium hexaferrite concentration (up to 20% by volume) in a liquid photoresist, SU8. Rotation of hexaferrite particles in the polymer matrix and, thus, magnetic anisotropy has been demonstrated in the composite, which is subsequently cured to hold the physical position and orientation of the particles. The anisotropy of the self-biasing field provided by the films has been experimentally characterized, and a ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) frequency
$\sim $
43 GHz has been observed. We have also characterized the viscosity of the particle-laden polymer at different particle concentrations. The 3-D printing of this composite with poling will make it possible to directly print magnetic components that require out-of-plane anisotropic magnetization.