Manufacturing of high strength and high conductivity copper with laser powder bed fusion

Yingang Liu; Jingqi Zhang; Ranming Niu; Mohamad Bayat; Ying Zhou; Yu Yin; Qiyang Tan; Shiyang Liu; Jesper Henri Hattel; Miaoquan Li; Xiaoxu Huang; Julie Cairney; Yi-Sheng Chen; Mark Easton; Christopher Hutchinson; Ming-Xing Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-45732-y

Manufacturing of high strength and high conductivity copper with laser powder bed fusion

Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 12;15(1):1283. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45732-y.

Authors

Yingang Liu^#¹, Jingqi Zhang^#¹, Ranming Niu^{2

3}, Mohamad Bayat⁴, Ying Zhou⁵, Yu Yin¹, Qiyang Tan¹, Shiyang Liu¹, Jesper Henri Hattel⁴, Miaoquan Li⁶, Xiaoxu Huang^{7

8}, Julie Cairney^{9

10}, Yi-Sheng Chen^{9

10}, Mark Easton¹¹, Christopher Hutchinson¹², Ming-Xing Zhang¹³

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia.
² Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. ranming.niu@sydney.edu.au.
³ School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. ranming.niu@sydney.edu.au.
⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
⁵ State IJR Center of Aerospace Design and Additive Manufacturing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
⁶ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
⁷ International Joint Laboratory for Light Alloys (Ministry of Education), College of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China.
⁸ Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China.
⁹ Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
¹⁰ School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
¹¹ Centre for Additive Manufacturing, School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
¹² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia. christopher.hutchinson@monash.edu.
¹³ School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia. mingxing.zhang@uq.edu.au.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM), known as 3D printing, enables rapid fabrication of geometrically complex copper (Cu) components for electrical conduction and heat management applications. However, pure Cu or Cu alloys produced by 3D printing often suffer from either low strength or low conductivity at room and elevated temperatures. Here, we demonstrate a design strategy for 3D printing of high strength, high conductivity Cu by uniformly dispersing a minor portion of lanthanum hexaboride (LaB₆) nanoparticles in pure Cu through laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF). We show that trace additions of LaB₆ to pure Cu results in an improved L-PBF processability, an enhanced strength, an improved thermal stability, all whilst maintaining a high conductivity. The presented strategy could expand the applicability of 3D printed Cu components to more demanding conditions where high strength, high conductivity and thermal stability are required.