Exploring Innovation Through Alternate Metals and Sputtering

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Dr. Evelyne Parmentier has a PhD in physical chemistry from ETH Zurich. She was born in Luxembourg and is now a proud resident of Switzerland, where she has been part of Dyconex’s R&D engineering team for the past two years. She loves that her “new” career with Dyconex allows for multidisciplinary exposure to science. “I really enjoy chemistry, physics, materials science, and electrical engineering,” she says. “For me, it is fascinating to see all these sciences together in one industry.”

Evelyne gave a presentation at the EIPC Summer Conference titled “Functionalization of Printed Circuit Boards Through Introducing Alternate Metals Through Sputtered Layers,” where she asked her audience, “If there are 93 metals in the periodic table, why are we not using more of them?”

In this interview, Evelyne discusses this question as she delves into the technical aspects and benefits of sputtering as a metallization process.

Marcy LaRont: Evelyne, you made the comment in your presentation that there are 93 metals on the periodic table, and we should use more of them. Can you elaborate on that comment?

Evelyne Parmentier: Throughout my academic career, I have studied various branches of chemistry, including organic, inorganic, and organometallic chemistry. However, somehow, we never focused on a big part of the periodic table, which is metals. At Dyconex, I was exposed to these very interesting metals, each of which has its own distinct electrical, chemical, physical, and thermal properties. We started thinking, “If we have all these metals with unique properties, then theoretically at least some of them should be able to be used for specific applications.” There should be, perhaps, other metals beyond what we have been using that would also be able to meet the requirements of a particular application. That’s why I started my presentation that way.

LaRont: What was the feedback?

Parmentier: A couple of chemists came up to me and said that they had also never examined other metals in so much detail. In our education, we all learned a little bit about metallic bonding, how metals are built up, and what they have in common, but never how each of these distinct metals behaves.

To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the October 2024 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.