Abstract
Electrical conductivity is a key factor in measuring performance of printed electronics,<br /> but the conductivity of inkjet-printed silver nanoinks greatly depends on post-fabrication<br /> sintering. In this work, two different conductive silver nanoinks, in which the silver nanoparticles were stabilized by two different capping agents – Poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and Poly(methacrylic acid) (PMA) – were synthesized. The inks were inkjet-printed on flexible PET substrates, coated with an additional polycation layer, which facilitated<br /> chemical sintering. The printed features were then exposed to moderately elevated<br /> temperatures to evaluate the effect of combined chemical and thermal sintering. Both<br /> inks produced conductive features at room temperature, and the conductivity increased<br /> with both temperature and duration of sintering. At temperatures above 100 °C, the choice of capping agent had no pronounced effect on conductivity, which approached very high values of 50 % of bulk silver in all cases. The lowest resistivity (2.24 μΩ cm) was obtained after sintering at 120 °C for 180 min. By combining chemical and conventional thermal sintering, we have produced remarkably conductive silver electrodes on flexible substrates, while using low-cost and simple processes.
Highlights
Owing to their superior optical and electrical characteristics, metal nanoparticles have become the focus of several fields of research, such as catalysis[1,2], biomedicine and biosensors[3,4], optics[5], and electronics[6,7]
Both Poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)-AgNP and Poly(methacrylic acid) (PMA)-AgNP inks were deposited by an inkjet printer onto flexible PET substrates (Fig. 2), after which the effect of thermal sintering was studied
We have developed two conductive silver nanoparticle-based inks using Poly(acrylic acid) and Poly(methacrylic acid) as stabilizers
Summary
Owing to their superior optical and electrical characteristics, metal nanoparticles have become the focus of several fields of research, such as catalysis[1,2], biomedicine and biosensors[3,4], optics[5], and electronics[6,7]. In the case of flexible electronics, inkjet printing of metal nanoparticle-based conductive inks has recently been utilized abundantly as an attractive technology to replace traditional electronics manufacturing processes[7,8]. Since it exhibits favorable properties in terms of electrical conductivity, stability against oxidation, and relatively low price for such properties, nanosilver is the material of choice for printed electronics[7,9]. The most utilized synthetic preparation routes of silver nanoparticles intended for conductive ink materials are chemical reduction with borohydride[10] and hydrazine[11].
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