Abstract
We report a fabrication method of the conductive pattern based on in situ reactive silver precursor inks by inkjet printing. The reactive silver precursor inks were prepared with ethylene glycol and deionized water mixture as the solvent, and silver nitrate as silver source. Sodium borohydride solution as the reducing agent was first coated on photographic paper by screen printing process, and then dried at 50 °C for 4 h. Furthermore, the reactive silver precursor inks were printed on a photographic paper coated with sodium borohydride using inkjet printing to form silver nanoparticles in situ due to redox reaction, and thus a conductive pattern was obtained. The effects of the reactive silver precursor ink concentration and printing layer number and treatment temperature on the electrical properties and microstructures of the printed patterns were investigated systematically. The size range of in situ-formed silver nanoparticles was 50–90 nm. When the reactive silver precursor ink concentration was 0.13 g/mL, the five-layer printed pattern exhibited a sheet resistance of 4.6 Ω/γ after drying at room temperature for 2 h; furthermore, the sheet resistance of the printed pattern decreased to 1.4 Ω/γ after drying at 130 °C for 2 h. In addition, the display function circuit was printed on the photographic paper to realize the display of the numbers 0–99. It provides new research ideas for the development of environmentally friendly and low-cost flexible paper-based circuits.
Highlights
The inorganic–organic composite coating had a honeycomb-like structure, and when sodium borohydride solution was coated on the paper by the screen printing process, it was quickly absorbed by the honeycomb-like micropores and attached to the paper
The in-site reactive silver precursor inks were prepared with ethylene glycol and water mixture as the solvent, silver nitrate as the silver source, and sodium borohydride as the reducing agent
Sodium borohydride solution was first coated on photographic paper by screen printing process, and the reactive inks were printed on a photographic paper coated with sodium borohydride using inkjet printing to form silver nanoparticles in situ due to redox reaction, and conductive patterns were obtained after drying at room temperature
Summary
With the development of flexible electronics, printing electronics have shown a low-cost, environmentally friendly manufacturing process and excellent performance that is lightweight, flexible, and foldable, and which increases device integration density and reduces parasitic capacitance [1,2]. Because of the poor adhesion between nanoparticles and the substrate, nanoparticles in conductive patterns described above are peeled off or can crack in the application process [29] To address these issues, particle-free in situ reactive inks have been recently developed, with great advantages in their simple, low-cost fabrication process and high conductivity using relatively low treatment temperature [30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38]. We report a fabrication method of the conductive pattern based on in situ reactive silver inks by inkjet printing. Ethylene glycol as solvent and moisturizer helped prevent nozzle clogging and maintained a certain viscosity without additives This method provides new research ideas for the development of environmentally friendly and low-cost flexible paper-based circuits
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