Oxidation behavior of Cu–Ag core–shell particles for solar cell applications

Annealing-induced highly-conductive and stable Cu–organic composite nanoparticles with hierarchical structures

“…Cu-Ag core-shell structures have been made, and used, for printed electronics on flexible substrates [17,18]. They have high oxidation resistance and electrical conductivity.…”

Ethylene glycol-based Ag plating for the wet chemical fabrication of one micrometer Cu/Ag core/shell particles

“…6(a)-(f) being 176, 189, 200, 180, 206, and 281°C, respectively. The formation of Ag agglomerates on the surface of Cu through Ag dewetting during air heating at temperatures near 200°C has been recently reported as being the result of unstable interfacial energy, which induces oxidation of the exposed pure Cu [9,14]. Given this, it is plausible that the homogeneous and thick Ag shell fabricated in this study may delay this dewetting phenomenon through Ag diffusion.…”

Resistance to Oxidation at 150℃ of Sub-Micrometer Diameter Silver-Coated Copper Particles Produced by Wet Chemical Synthesis and Immersion Plating

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] The reason for this is that if an Ag coating layer can prevent the Cu oxidizing during curing in air at temperatures less than 200 C, then the Ag-coated Cu particles can be used as a more price competitive alternative to Ag ller materials currently used in the preparation of conductive pastes; i.e., the electrical conductivity of Cu is comparable to that of Ag. Furthermore, this should make it possible to reduce the size of the ller particles to around one micrometer or less, thereby keeping up with the trend in electrode printing toward producing ne patterns with dimensions narrower than the present level of 40-50 μm.…”

“…Any discontinuous Ag coating method using Cu core particles dried after the wet synthesis can fail to accomplish complete coating due to surface oxidation, whereas the successive Ag plating will do not. As an example of such a method, Hai et al synthesized 5 μm-diameter Ag-coated Cu particles and investigated their thermal oxidation properties, 9) and yet though they observed dewetting of the Ag layer on the Cu surface as it reacted at temperatures approaching 200 C, the long-term oxidation behavior at 150 C was not described. Given that the most common curing temperature used for conductive pastes is 150 C, there is clearly a need to examine the oxidation behavior of Ag-coated Cu particles at this temperature.…”