Inkjet printing of conductive tracks is a major research topic for electronic applications. In this context silver is a widely used material. Especially the printing of silver tracks onto flexible substrates is of high interest but is often limited by the temperature applied in the post process. For many silver inks, the required temperatures to obtain metallic silver are much higher than the glass transition temperature of the substrate and thus the substrate is not applicable. Furthermore, nanoparticles in silver inks tend to clog the nozzles of inkjet printheads.We herein present an ink system, based on water soluble metal-organic molecules with high silver content. The ink transforms rapidly to elemental, conductive silver films at a temperature of 220 °C in only a few minutes. The physical properties of the solution are suitable for the inkjet technology. In addition to ink and printing characteristics, alternative approaches for the conversion of the silver ink with lower temperature induced stress on the substrate are discussed.
Stephan F. Jahn, Alexander Jakob, Ingo Reinhold, Lutz Engisch, Heinrich Lang, Reinhard R. Baumann, "Structuring of flexible substrates by the use of an aqueous solution based silver ink" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP24), 2008, pp 684 - 688, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2008.24.1.art00058_2