Abstract
In this study two different silver nanoparticle inks were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis to define promising sintering temperatures. The inks were printed on flexible polyimide as well as polyethylene terephthalate substrates. Online electrical resistance measurements of printed lines were conducted to specify certain durations for each sintering temperature. Printed Van der Pauw structures were sintered according to the determined parameter sets to investigate the influence of sintering temperature and duration on the adhesion. Sintering at temperatures less or equal to the maximum evaporation rate leads to an increasing adhesion on PI with prolonged sintering duration. Sintering above the maximum evaporation rate, leads to a fast increasing adhesion on PI peaking around 3 N/mm2 and decreasing with prolonged sintering duration. The increase of adhesion is slower than the decrease of the electrical resistance. Hence,thermogravimetric analysis can be used to determine the target-aimed sintering temperatures, which can be evaluated regarding adhesion and electrical resistance in further experiments to find sufficient adhesion, electrical resistance with an acceptable sintering duration. On PET the adhesion decreases with increasing sintering duration for both inks, which might originate from a chemical degradation. Thus, adhesion of printed structures on PI and PET could not be compared by the pull-off test.
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