A 3D Printing Strategy for Hard Curved Surfaced Circuits: From Materials to Applications

Abstract

With the continuous development of digital surface circuit manufacturing technology, the three-dimensional (3D) printing strategy of structural electronics has shown an increasingly wide application prospect in the field of electronics, especially in its main subfields such as conformal antennas, sensors, and aerospace. However, there are still many technical challenges in manufacturing high-precision circuits on complex curved surfaces and within structures. In view of that, this study summarizes the latest development trends and results in 3D printing technology for structural electronics, focusing on the materials, conformal manufacturing technology, printing process control strategies, and their practical applications. In addition, this study analyzes the characteristics, advantages, and limitations of different digital surface circuit manufacturing processes and discusses their application potentials in practice. Finally, this study presents possible future development directions in the field of structural electronics 3D printing and emphasizes the opportunities and challenges in manufacturing conformal electronics on arbitrary surfaces.