As power electronic modules are increasingly required to provide improved heat dissipation, aluminum nitride (AlN) stands out against other ceramic materials. At the same time, more cost-efficient production of customized products demands shorter development cycles and innovative manufacturing processes. Conventional process chains in power electronics are usually long and inflexible; thus, innovative ways to reduce process steps and faster prototyping are needed. Therefore, this study investigates the usage of additive manufacturing technology—laser-based powder bed fusion of metal powder (PBF-LB/M)—namely copper (Cu), on AlN substrates for power electronic applications. It is found that specific electrical conductivity values can be achieved up to 31 MS/m, and adhesion measured by shear testing reaches 15 MPa. In reliability testing, the newly produced samples exhibit a 25% decrease in adhesion after 250 cycles, which is comparatively moderate. This study shows the feasibility of PBF-LB/M of Cu powder on AlN, emphasizing its strengths and highlighting remaining weaknesses.

Additive manufacturing shows great potential to further increase the performance of power electronic modules through novel packaging concepts. Such an approach is the integrated manufacturing of metal-ceramic substrates by means of laser powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M). With this layered additive manufacturing process, planar ceramic substrates can be metallized and electrically functionalized for power electronic applications. In this paper Al2O3 ceramic substrates are metallized via PBF-LB/M by selectively melting applied powder layers with software defined geometries. The investigated powders are mixtures of copper and titanium powders with 1 wt.%, 5 wt.% and 10 wt.% titanium in order to enable bonding by creating a titanium-oxide reaction layer at the interface to the ceramic. Shear tests and microstructural investigations show that a subsequent heat treatment increases the adhesion and density of the metallization. By energy dispersive X-ray microscopy (EDX) the partial formation of reaction layers is detected.