‘‘Invisible’’ Silver Tracks Produced by Combining Hot-Embossing and Inkjet Printing

Hendriks, Chris E.; Smith, Patrick J.; Perelaer, Jolke; van den Berg, Antje M. J.; Schubert, Ulrich S.

Abstract:

Hot-embossed features are prepared by pushing customized and standard silicon calibration gratings, known as masters, into either polystyrene or polycarbonate, which are kept above their glass transition temperatures.Adroplet of a silver nanoparticle ink is then dispensed over one of these as-formed grooves using an inkjet printer. The ink fills the grooves as a consequence of capillary forces and is observed to form tracks with a uniform width. The tracks are described as ‘invisible’ on account of having widths ranging from 5 to 15 mm. Wider tracks can be produced by dispensing more droplets and tracks with different morphologies can be produced by using different masters. Several as-prepared features are thermally treated to produce conductive silver tracks. The conductivity of the tracks is found to be
20% that of bulk silver.

Year:

2008

Type of Publication:

Article

Journal:

Advanced Functional Materials

Volume:

18

Pages:

1031 - 1038