Novel soft blanket gravure printing technology with an improved ink transfer process

Abstract

A newly developed patterning technology called ‘Soft Blanket Gravure’ (SBG) printing is introduced, which uses a thick offset blanket made of a soft material (soft blanket). The SBG printing technology is based on conventional gravure offset printing, but is able to receive ink from a printing plate and transfers it to target substrates more completely under a variety conditions. In this research work, the printability of conductive lines using silver inks was studied for this patterning technology under atypical printing conditions. The SBG printing technology can successfully print silver conductive lines that are uniform and thicker under various conditions, as well as relatively thin lines, by using the same printer configuration and printing parameters. In addition, we validated the gravure offset printing mechanisms using the soft blanket.