Pulsed light sintering characteristics of inkjet-printed nanosilver films on a polymer substrate

Abstract

In this work, the microstructures of inkjet-printed nanosilver films sintered by intense pulsed light (IPL) were systematically analyzed and correlated with the electrical properties. Nanosilver films with various dimensions were inkjet-printed and sintered at different light intensities to investigate the effects of the film dimension and light intensity on the sintering characteristics. For comparison purposes, the same inkjet-printed films were also thermally sintered at 210 °C for 1 h. Consecutive light pulses from a xenon lamp induced film swelling and the corresponding hollow microstructures of the inkjet nanosilver films. The resistance of IPL-sintered films was inversely proportional to the light intensity, and the resultant conductivity comparable to the thermally sintered one was achieved within just a few tens of ms, without damaging a polymer substrate. While all the thermally sintered patterns experienced shrinkage during the sintering process, the IPL-sintered ones could keep their initial dimension at a certain light intensity.

Rapid and Versatile Photonic Annealing of Graphene Inks for Flexible Printed Electronics

“…Indeed, we note that films that are IPL annealed at high pulse energies exhibit different film morphologies from thermally annealed films (Supporting Information, Figure S8 and S9). A similar effect has been previously observed for metal nanoparticles sintered by IPL annealing, and is attributed to the extreme temperatures and heat gradients induced by the process . In particular, the rapid polymer decomposition and generation of volatile products during IPL annealing could lead to local stresses, resulting in the observed unique morphological features.…”

Effect of the Amine Concentration on Phase Evolution and Densification in Printed Films Using Cu(II) Complex Ink

“…1−6 The conductive metal nanoparticle inks based on Au, Ag, and Cu nanoparticles have been conventionally used for printed metallization, and their sintering mechanism during thermal heating has been well-understood. 7,8 In addition, various advanced sintering techniques, such as electrical, 9 microwave, 10 plasma, 11 laser, 12 flash light [intense pulsed light (IPL)], 13 and chemical sintering, 14,15 have been developed for the efficient densification and high electrical conductivity of the printed films with such metal nanoparticle inks. Recently, the solutionbased inks including a metal ion complex ink and a metal− organic decomposition (MOD) ink have been studied to overcome the limitations of the nanoparticle-based inks (i.e., the difficulty of their stability, scalabilily, and cost reduction).…”

Plasmonic‐Tuned Flash Cu Nanowelding with Ultrafast Photochemical‐Reducing and Interlocking on Flexible Plastics

“…Recently, the flash lamp techniques have achieved outstanding adaptability to metallic nanoparticles (NPs) and nanowires (NWs), facilitating simple platforms of printed electronics . Our group also demonstrated excellent performance of an Ag nanonetwork on plastics by flash‐induced interactions.…”