Dispensing of high concentration Ag nano-particles ink for ultra-low resistivity paper-based writing electronics

Paper-based writing electronics has received a lot of interest recently due to its potential applications in flexible electronics. To obtain ultra-low resistivity paper-based writing electronics, we developed a kind of ink with high concentration of Ag Nano-particles (up to 80 wt%), as well as a related dispensing writing system consisting an air compressor machine and a dispenser. Additionally, we also demonstrated the writability and practical application of our proposed ink and writing system. Based on the study on the effect of sintering time and pressure, we found the optimal sintering time and pressure to obtain high quality Ag NPs wires. The electrical conductivity of nano-silver paper-based electronics has been tested using the calculated resistivity. After hot-pressure sintering at 120 °C, 25 MPa pressure for 20 minutes, the resistivity of silver NPs conductive tracks was 3.92 × 10−8 (Ωm), only 2.45 times of bulk silver. The mechanical flexibility of nano-silver paper-based electronics also has been tested. After 1000 bending cycles, the resistivity slightly increased from the initial 4.01 × 10−8 to 5.08 × 10−8 (Ωm). With this proposed ink preparation and writing system, a kind of paper-based writing electronics with ultra-low resistivity and good mechanical flexibility was achieved.

[1]  John A. Rogers,et al.  Omnidirectional Printing of Flexible, Stretchable, and Spanning Silver Microelectrodes , 2009, Science.

[2]  C. Grigoropoulos,et al.  All-inkjet-printed flexible electronics fabrication on a polymer substrate by low-temperature high-resolution selective laser sintering of metal nanoparticles , 2007 .

[3]  Ping Liu,et al.  High‐Performance Organic Thin‐Film Transistors with Solution‐Printed Gold Contacts , 2005 .

[4]  Zhi‐ying Zhang,et al.  Paper-based nanosilver conductive ink , 2013, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics.

[5]  Seonghyun Kim,et al.  Flexible Organic LED and Organic Thin-Film Transistor , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[6]  H. Jing,et al.  Pressure-assisted low-temperature sintering for paper-based writing electronics , 2013, Nanotechnology.

[7]  Sylvie Grugeon,et al.  Nano‐Sized Transition‐Metal Oxides as Negative‐Electrode Materials for Lithium‐Ion Batteries. , 2001 .

[8]  Yonggang Huang,et al.  Ultrathin Silicon Circuits With Strain‐Isolation Layers and Mesh Layouts for High‐Performance Electronics on Fabric, Vinyl, Leather, and Paper , 2009 .

[9]  Jan Genoe,et al.  Exploring spray coating as a deposition technique for the fabrication of solution-processed solar cells , 2009 .

[10]  George M Whitesides,et al.  Thin, lightweight, foldable thermochromic displays on paper. , 2009, Lab on a chip.

[11]  Zhi‐ying Zhang,et al.  One step synthesis of uniform organic silver ink drawing directly on paper substrates , 2012 .

[12]  Jaeyoung Kim,et al.  All-Printed and Roll-to-Roll-Printable 13.56-MHz-Operated 1-bit RF Tag on Plastic Foils , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[13]  M. Dragoman,et al.  Writing simple RF electronic devices on paper with carbon nanotube ink , 2009, Nanotechnology.

[14]  G. Whitesides,et al.  Foldable Printed Circuit Boards on Paper Substrates , 2010 .

[15]  U. Schubert,et al.  Ink‐jet Printing and Microwave Sintering of Conductive Silver Tracks , 2006 .

[16]  Katsuhiko Fujita,et al.  The Shift from “Hard” to “Soft” Electronics , 2002 .

[17]  A. Nathan,et al.  Amorphous silicon thin film transistor circuit integration for organic LED displays on glass and plastic , 2004, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[18]  Yi Cui,et al.  Highly conductive paper for energy-storage devices , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[19]  X.B. Chen,et al.  Effects of fluid properties on dispensing processes for electronics packaging , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Electronics Packaging Manufacturing.

[20]  Kanti Jain,et al.  Flexible Electronics and Displays: High-Resolution, Roll-to-Roll, Projection Lithography and Photoablation Processing Technologies for High-Throughput Production , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[21]  J. Lewis,et al.  Pen‐on‐Paper Flexible Electronics , 2011, Advanced materials.

[22]  U. Schubert,et al.  Inkjet Printing of Polymers: State of the Art and Future Developments , 2004 .

[23]  W. J. Zhang,et al.  Off-line control of time-pressure dispensing processes for electronics packaging , 2003 .

[24]  Josef Salbeck,et al.  Solid-state dye-sensitized mesoporous TiO2 solar cells with high photon-to-electron conversion efficiencies , 1998, Nature.

[25]  Jooho Moon,et al.  Highly Conductive Ink Jet Printed Films of Nanosilver Particles for Printable Electronics , 2005 .

[26]  G. Whitesides,et al.  Patterned paper as a platform for inexpensive, low-volume, portable bioassays. , 2007, Angewandte Chemie.

[27]  Gyoung-Ja Lee,et al.  A novel method to prepare Cu@Ag core–shell nanoparticles for printed flexible electronics , 2014 .

[28]  U. Schubert,et al.  Inkjet Printing of Narrow Conductive Tracks on Untreated Polymeric Substrates , 2008 .