Anomalous Temperature Effect on the Deposition Morphology in Reactive Inkjet Printing

Abstract

Reactive inkjet (RIJ) printing represents an important approach for printed electronics. Different from the traditional inkjet printing of colloidal inks with nanosized metal particles, RIJ prints the solution of metal organic compound, that is, metal‐organic decomposition (MOD) ink, and reduces it to the pure metal during the post‐treatment to form conductive electrodes. Successful RIJ printing of MOD inks has been demonstrated; however, the fundamental understanding of droplet deposition involved in RIJ printing is lacking. Herein, the effect of substrate temperature and nozzle temperature during inkjet printing of copper MOD ink on the deposition morphology is investigated. It exhibits distinct behaviors in the deposition morphology at elevated temperatures when compared with the ones at room temperature. The different deposition morphology of the copper ink at various temperatures is attributed to the generation of a localized seeding layer which attracts the copper ions to deposit. In addition, the copper MOD ink printing is compared with a silver MOD ink. The different deposition morphology between the copper ink and silver ink is due to the solvent system. Understanding the deposition mechanism for reactive inks provides valuable information and guidance in the fabrication of printed functional devices using particle‐free reactive inks.