Screen Printing of Highly Loaded Silver Inks on Plastic Substrates Using Silicon Stencils

Abstract

Screen printing is a potential technique for mass-production of printed electronics; however, improvement in printing resolution is needed for high integration and performance. In this study, screen printing of highly loaded silver ink (77 wt %) on polyimide films is studied using fine-scale silicon stencils with openings ranging from 5 to 50 μm wide. This approach enables printing of high-resolution silver lines with widths as small as 22 μm. The printed silver lines on polyimide exhibit good electrical properties with a resistivity of 5.5×10(-6) Ω cm and excellent bending tolerance for bending radii greater than 5 mm (tensile strains less than 0.75%).

Printing Conductive Nanomaterials for Flexible and Stretchable Electronics: A Review of Materials, Processes, and Applications

“…Recently, highly loaded AgNP ink (77 wt%) using water and EG as cosolvents and narrow openings of silicon stencils ranging from 5 to 50 µm in width was applied to obtain Ag lines with linewidth as small as 22 µm and resistivity of 5.5 µΩ cm. The resistivity was lower than that of screen‐printed Ag flake patterns (typical resistivity values of 18–25 µΩ cm) . By dispersing CuNPs in EC and terpineol, highly viscous Cu paste was screen printed on PET substrate.…”

“…However, these flakes or particles do not allow high‐resolution printing with the linewidth smaller than 70 µm, which results in high shadow losses . To improve the resolution of screen‐printed Ag patterns, several methods have been employed: i) increasing the substrate temperature to reduce the deposited ink quantity and spreading, ii) modifying the mesh surface to control the adhesion of the ink on the mesh, and iii) decreasing width of the stencil opening . Recently, highly loaded AgNP ink (77 wt%) using water and EG as cosolvents and narrow openings of silicon stencils ranging from 5 to 50 µm in width was applied to obtain Ag lines with linewidth as small as 22 µm and resistivity of 5.5 µΩ cm.…”

Fabrication and interfacial characteristics of surface modified Ag nanoparticle based conductive composites

“…Polyacrylic acid (PAA) was selected as the particle stabilizer in this work for its wide utilization in producing and stabilizing Ag nanoparticles as inks for direct writing and printing. [13][14][15] Compared to small molecules such as citrate, PAA prevents the aggregation of Ag nanoparticles due to the larger steric hindrance from its longer polymer chains. 16 However, since PAA is a carboxylic acid-based polymer, the PAA-modied Ag nanoparticles were not well disperse within PDMS due to incompatible interfacial chemistries.…”

A Bioactive Carbon Nanotube‐Based Ink for Printing 2D and 3D Flexible Electronics

“…The strong adhesion of the electrically conductive ink to the substrate facilitated the screen printing process and resulted in the fabrication of complex patterns with higher resolution (linewidths as small as 100 μm), which are comparable to what other groups have achieved. [9, 12, 35] This resolution is better than what is achievable with commercially available conductive silver inks. Another advantage of using developed electrically conductive ink which is made up of an aqueous solvent is that the printing process results in reduced substrate damages compared to the organic solvents (acetone, isopropanol, ethanol, dichloromethane, etc.)…”