Department - Author 1

Materials Engineering Department

Degree Name - Author 1

BS in Materials Engineering

Date

6-2017

Primary Advisor

Linda Vanasupa

Abstract/Summary

Printing of conductive ink traditionally uses copper-based ink and was used on high temperature metal substrates due to the high curing and sintering temperature of copper. In this experiment, however, Metalon JS-B25P nano-silver conductive ink was printed using an Epson Stylus C88+ inkjet printer on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) based Novele printing media made for low temperature applications. With silver’s lower sintering temperature, the nano-silver particles in this ink are desired to be able to sinter at a low enough temperature to be used on the PET substrate. The printed ink traces were cured with a temperature-controlled hotplate at 100℃, 120℃, 140℃, and 160℃ for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, and 120 minutes. The resistivity of these silver ink traces were calculated and compared to the bulk silver resistivity of 1.67x10-8 Ωm to 1.81x10-8 Ωm1, where the ideal resistivity of the silver ink traces would be less than 5 times that of bulk silver. A profilometer was used to measure the thickness of the thin ink film in order to calculate the resistivity. The ideal resistivities were not met, and the resistivity of the sample ink traces ranged from five to ten times the bulk resistivity. No significant statistical difference were observed across the different curing condition groups.

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