Pico- to nanosecond pulsed laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) of silver nanoparticle inks: a comparative study

J Mikšys,G Arutinov,G R B E Römer

doi:10.1007/s00339-019-3085-8

J Mikšys, G Arutinov + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-019-3085-8

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Journal: Applied physics	Publication Date: Nov 7, 2019
Citations: 14	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University of Twente, Holst Centre (Netherlands)

Abstract

Silver nanoparticle inks are among the key functional materials used in printed electronics. Depositing it by laser-induced forward transfer remains a challenging task because the non-linear rheological nature of these inks narrows the range of the laser processing parameters. Understanding, therefore, the influence of the laser parameters on the ejection dynamics and deposition quality is of critical importance. The influence of the laser pulse duration from pico- to nanosecond-laser-induced jet dynamics was investigated using time-resolved shadowgraphy imaging. Jet speed and surface area analyses showed that in the lower laser fluence level range, picosecond pulses induce higher surface area ejections which propagate at higher velocities. As the laser fluence levels were increased, the difference in jet velocity and surface area evolutions narrows. Deposition analysis showed a similar behavior with lower transfer thresholds and larger depositions at lower fluence range when picosecond-laser pulses were used.

Highlights

The field of printed electronics has been actively explored for the last couple of decades [1,2,3,4]
Current printing techniques lack flexibility and/or versatility, e.g. screen printing is characterized by high yield, but it is a mask-based approach [5, 15]; inkjet printing is digital, but cannot be applied to highly viscous materials [16]; jet printing can operate with viscous materials, but is relatively slow [17]
We used time-resolved shadowgraphy imaging to compare the dynamics of silver nanoparticle ink ejections, induced by ps- and ns-laser pulses

Summary

Introduction

The field of printed electronics has been actively explored for the last couple of decades [1,2,3,4] During this period, a number of printing techniques, such as screen printing [5], inkjet printing [6] and jet printing [7], were optimized for application in display technology [8, 9], RFID tags [10, 11], bio-engineering [12] and sensing [13, 14].

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