Progress of alternative sintering approaches of inkjet-printed metal inks and their application for manufacturing of flexible electronic devices

Well-defined high resolution structures with excellent electrical conductivities are key components of almost every electronic device. Producing these by printing metal based conductive inks on polymer foils represents an important step forward towards the manufacturing of plastic electronic products on an industrial scale. The development of...

Alternative sintering methods compared to conventional thermal sintering for inkjet printed silver nanoparticle ink

In this contribution several alternative sintering methods are compared to traditional thermal sintering as high temperature and long process time of thermal sintering are increasing the costs of inkjet-printing and preventing the use of this technology in large scale manufacturing. Alternative sintering techniques are evaluated based on the...

Low temperature sintering of inkjet printed metal precursor inks for organic electronic applications

As a nascent technology that developed during the last decades from only printing text and graphics into an important scientific research tool for R&D, inkjet printers are nowadays used as a highly reproducible non-contact patterning tool. In contrast to non-digital patterning tools, inkjet printing represents an additive technique that requires...

Inkjet printing and low temperature sintering for organic electronic applications

In recent years, inkjet printing is increasingly used as a flexible and digital patterning technique in order to deposit functional materials for the manufacturing of microelectronic applications, including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, organic photovoltaics (OPV), organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and printed circuit boards....

Roll-to-roll compatible sintering of inkjet printed features by photonic and microwave exposure: From non-conductive ink to 40% bulk silver conductivity in less than 15 seconds

A combination of photonic and microwave flash exposure is used to sinter inkjet printed silver nanoparticles. This approach leads to conductive features on polymer substrates in short times that are compatible with roll-to-roll production. The sequential process of sintering the as-printed features revealed a final conductivity of 40% of bulk...

Combined sintering approaches for fast sintering of inkjet printed nanoparticles for R2R applications

Inkjet printing is a nascent technology that developed during the last decades from only printing text and graphics into an important scientific research tool for R&D, where printers are used as a highly reproducible non-contact patterning tool. In contrast to lithography, inkjet printing is an additive technique that requires only small amounts...

Microwave flash sintering of inkjet-printed silver tracks on polymer substrates

Microwave flash sintering of inkjet printed colloidal silver dispersions on thin polymer substrates was studied as a function of the antenna area and initial resistance. The presence of conductive antennae promotes nanoparticle sintering in predried ink lines. For dried nanoparticle inks connected to antennae, sintering times of 1 s are...