Abstract
Printed electronics on flexible substrates has attracted tremendous research interest research thanks its low cost, large area production capability and environmentally friendly advantages. Optimal characteristics of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) based inks are crucial for ink rheology, printing, post-print treatment, and performance of the printed electronics devices. In this review, the methods and mechanisms for obtaining Ag NPs based inks that are highly conductive under moderate sintering conditions are summarized. These characteristics are particularly important when printed on temperature sensitive substrates that cannot withstand sintering of high temperature. Strategies to tailor the protective agents capping on the surface of Ag NPs, in order to optimize the sizes and shapes of Ag NPs as well as to modify the substrate surface, are presented. Different (emerging) sintering technologies are also discussed, including photonic sintering, electrical sintering, plasma sintering, microwave sintering, etc. Finally, applications of the Ag NPs based ink in transparent conductive film (TCF), thin film transistor (TFT), biosensor, radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna, stretchable electronics and their perspectives on flexible and printed electronics are presented.
Highlights
Over the past few decades, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) have made a substantial impact on various fields, such as biomedical [1,2,3], optoelectronics [4,5], catalysis [6,7,8,9], imaging [10,11,12], etc., due to their superior physical, chemical and biological characteristics compared to their macroscale counterparts
In the emerging and fast growing multidisciplinary research field, flexible and printed electronics (FPE), Ag NPs have been a key component of conductive ink [25,26,27]
In spite of the printed radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna based on Ag NPs based inks, this is relatively mature in its technique and has shown its obvious advantages in high production efficiency and lower environmental impact; its price is still a little bit high in most cases compared to that of a counterpart fabricated with traditional methods and using aluminum and copper as conductive materials
Summary
Over the past few decades, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) have made a substantial impact on various fields, such as biomedical [1,2,3], optoelectronics [4,5], catalysis [6,7,8,9], imaging [10,11,12], etc., due to their superior physical, chemical and biological characteristics compared to their macroscale counterparts. FPE refers to the application of printing technologies for the fabrication of electronic circuits and devices on flexible substrates [28,29]. After Ag NPs based conductive ink was printed on the substrate, the sintering process is often needed to remove or decompose the protective agents from the surfaces of Ag NPs, enabling direct physical contacts between Ag NPs, and to establish a dense and conductive network throughout the printed feature. Obtaining Ag NPs based ink, which only requires for moderate sintering and high conductivity, is of the utmost important for the development of FPE. The key influential factors related to the moderate sintering of Ag NPs based ink, such as protective agents, Ag NPs size and shapes, substrate modification as well as the emerging selective sintering techniques, are discussed in the following
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