Copper Conductive Ink Research Articles

Mechanical and light resistance of flexographic conductive ink films intended for printed electronics

The objective of the research is to investigate the mechanical and light resistance of two most common water-based and solvent inks with electrical properties printed on a paper substrate with the use of flexographic laboratory devices. One of them is black carbon semi-conductive the other one silver and copper conductive ink. Different thicknesses of these inks are tested to light and rub resistance. The sheet conductance and sheet resistance of the ink layers exposed to destructive factors is presented.The innovation in this research is to compare the changes in the properties of these inks due to the aforementioned destructive factors. It is also shown how the ink film thickness impacts its conductive properties. Black carbon nanoparticle ink after being subjected to abrasion exhibits about 67% better electrical properties and 11 times as good colorimetric properties as ink based on silver and copper mixture. The light destructive agent of 36 h and the rub off process have a negligible impact on the colour changes of black carbon ink 1 and a noticeable impact on silver and copper ink 2. The innovative conclusion is that the sheet resistance parameter of both the inks tested increases due to artificial light ageing and the abrasion process.

Enhanced Hybrid Copper Conductive Ink for Low Power Selective Laser Sintering

Copper conductive ink has great potential as an electrode material for flexible electronics due to its low-cost relative to silver conductive ink while having comparable electrical conductivity. The process of fabricating anti-oxidation hybrid copper conductive ink, however, results in an increase of required sintering energy; a high sintering temperature is disadvantageous due to the possibility of thermally damaging the substrate. In this study, selective laser sintering of new hybrid ink compositions was investigated by varying laser intensities and comparatively analyzing the resulting electrical conductivity. Then, the thermal behavior of fabricated inks during the sintering process was studied using experimental and numerical approaches. A finite element model was developed to simulate the laser heat flux and irradiation paths on the ink. Finally, the obtained results of the thermal profile were verified experimentally.

Effect of Copper and Graphene Material on Bow-tie Structured Antenna for 1.2 GHz Application

In this paper the effect of copper and graphene conductive ink material on antenna performance is compared. The patch structures are simulated using HFSS software. The designed antenna is resonating around 1.2 GHz giving reflection coefficient below −10 dB. The simulated and fabricated modified bow-tie antenna design have impedance bandwidth of 15 (simulated), 12 (copper), and 13.5 MHz (graphene), respectively, which are suitable for LTE (QUALCOMM), WiMAX, Wi-Fi applications. This modified design consists of various types of slots introduced at various places of bow-tie arm in order to get desired bandwidth and for the improvement in antenna performance parameters. This proposed antenna will work in UHF (Ultra High Frequency) band at 1.2 GHz. Compare to conventional bow-tie antenna this modified design will give better antenna performance parameters. In this work we have compared various performance parameters like return loss, VSWR and bandwidth for each design. These parameters have been validated for proposed model for resonating frequency.

Influence of Resins on Properties of Copper Screen Printing Conductive Ink

·Copper conductive inks for screen printing are being given great attention due to their widely application in printed electronics industry. In this study, copper conductive ink used for screen printing, which were grinded by three-roll mill machine, was prepared using the epoxy, polyurethane and acrylic resins as adhesive, the flake copper particles which had a diameter between 20 to 50 μm as conductive material and butly alcohol was chosen as solvent. The viscosity and the thixotropy of the conductive ink were measured by rheometer. The oxidation of the surface layer of copper were removed by submerged in a certain concentration of acid solution and the resistance of the sample was measured after heated at different various temperatures. The results showed that the rheology were better for screen printing by adding the acrylic resin and the minimum conductivity can be reached 1.93×10-3 Ω·cm.

Use of copper ink for fabricating conductive electrodes and RFID antenna tags by screen printing

We have synthesized nano-sized copper hydroxide powder and copper (II) neodecanoate complex that can be decomposed to form copper metal films. Copper conductive ink was then prepared by mixing the powder and complex with a binder in terpineol. The lowest resistivity of 12.5 μΩ cm and 5B level of adhesion strength were obtained with 5% addition of epoxy resin as a binder. The copper ink was then applied to fabricate a loop-type RFID antenna tag and the performance of the antenna was compared with that of conventional copper-etched and silver-paste antenna. The fabricated RFID antenna showed comparable performance to the conventional RFID antenna.

Ink-jet printing of Cu conductive ink on flexible substrate modified by oxygen plasma treatment

We conducted ink-jet printing of copper (Cu) conductive ink on polyimide (PI) film to form Cu conductive patterns and determine the correlation between Cu ink based on Cu complex and flexible substrate. First, the oxygen plasma treatment was performed to modify the surface property of the PI film, and contact angles were measured to confirm the change of its surface property. Thus, we confirmed the decrease of contact angles and optimized plasma treatment parameters. Then Cu conductive lines were formed on unmodified and modified PI films using ink-jet printing, and the printed lines were reduced and sintered by thermal treatment in hydrogen (H 2) atmosphere at 200 °C. The formed Cu conductive lines were analyzed by an optical microscope (OM), a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), an X-ray diffractometer (XRD), a non-contact 3D Profiler, and a four-point probe to confirm the shape, microstructure, crystal structure of conductive lines, and electrical conductivity. The continuous lines having pure Cu phase and well-sintered microstructure were successfully formed on PI substrate modified by oxygen plasma treatment and the correlation between Cu ink and substrate surface property was determined.