Mechanical characterisation of miniaturised direct inkjet printed 3Y-TZP specimens for microelectronic applications

Direct inkjet printing (DIP) allows the production of small ceramic specimens with special geometries starting from high solids content suspensions. In this work, thin (300 μm thickness) 3Y-TZP specimens were produced with the DIP technique as model materials for microelectronic applications. The mechanical strength of the printed specimens was evaluated under biaxial loading, and the results were interpreted within the framework of the Weibull theory. Hot-pressed 3Y-TZP specimens with the same geometry and dimensions were tested for comparison. The fracture surfaces were subsequently examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The inkjet printed materials revealed high mechanical reliability (m ≈ 10 for σ0 ≈ 1400 MPa), which was ascribed to the uniform and defect free microstructure generated by the DIP technique.