Low temperature plasma sintering of silver nanoparticles

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

“…134 Decreasing the technical complexity of a low-pressure process by using a plasma tool operating at atmospheric pressure also decreased the processing times to a few seconds to minutes. 133,134,136 In subsequent work, an increasing temperature for both, plasma temperature (#200 C) and substrate temperature (#110 C) proved to be more effective in terms of sintering time and achievable conductivity for both processes, low-pressure and atmospheric-pressure plasma sintering. 134 It was found that the sintering results of plasma sintering depend on the ink formulation (particle size and kind of stabilizer) but also on the dimensions (especially height) of the printed pattern, which is due to the skin effect occurring during plasma sintering.…”

“…7 Photographs of the process of single pass plasma sintering using an atmospheric pressure plasma tool (top), cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of a Ag NP ink after printing and after single pass plasma sintering (bottom). 133,136 Another approach of two stage plasma sintering of screen printed Cu NPs with PVP stabilization was followed by Kim et al 137 In the rst step, an atmospheric-pressure oxygen plasma was employed in order to decompose the stabilizing PVP polymer (see Fig. 134,135 nitrogen plasma torch at a speed of 20 mm s À1 on PEN foil.…”

Plasmas for additive manufacturing

“…(b) Representative scanning electron microscopy images from the top of inkjet‐printed 23‐ and 77‐nm Ag nanoparticle films after plasma sintering at indicated radiofrequency plasma powers and treatment times reprinted with permission from. [ 18 ] Insets show the unsintered Ag nanoparticle films for reference and the scale bars are 100 nm…”

“…The highest conductivity achieved was 40% of bulk Ag after 60 min of plasma treatment at 300 W. A later study showed that in addition to the solvent, the size of Ag nanoparticles also determines the effectiveness of plasma sintering. [ 18 ] Two different diameters of Ag nanoparticles, 23 and 77 nm, were synthesized and stabilized using the same organic capping agent and following printing, treated by a reactive ion etching (RIE) plasma system. SEM images of films treated at different powers and times showed that the film morphology evolved from a highly porous structure of discrete particles to a continuous film, with the transition occurring at shorter times with higher power (Figure 7b).…”

Determination of Surface Temperature in ICP RF Plasma Treatments of Organic Materials

“…On the other hand, in the present work, it was possible to achieve a higher accuracy on the results, allowing the prediction of when and where a phase-change transformation would occur by heating on sample surface (due interaction with plasma species), in a temperature range of less than 10 K. On an industrial level, when plasma treatment is applied in temperature-sensitive materials like food 7 , other organic materials 12,13 , films deposition on surfaces 34,35 or etching 2 , a good knowledge of the real surface temperature is very important for treatment control.…”