Morphology and conductivity improvement of metal mesh through roll‐to‐roll‐compatible near‐infrared sintering

Abstract

This work proposes a near-infrared (NIR) sintering method to improve the surface roughness and to reduce the sheet resistance of a gravure-offset-printed metal mesh with a viscous silver paste that contains large nanoparticles. Results indicate that the sintering was thorough because the porosity in the metal mesh approached 0%. Examination proved a 29.7% surface roughness improvement in the metal mesh after NIR sintering, which outperformed the conventional oven operations by 2.37%. In addition, material analyses through both energy-dispersive and Raman spectroscopy explained the reduction of insulative elements and features with chemical bonds in the metal mesh, supporting the finding of the most significant improvements in surface roughness (90.9%) and sheet resistance (98.6%). The effective NIR sintering evaluated in this work was proven to be not only capable of replacing discontinuous oven operations in roll-to-roll manufacturing but also efficient in enhancing the material characteristics under identical sintering conditions compared with conventional oven operations.