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Controlling and assessing the quality of aerosol jet printed features for large area and flexible electronics

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

Aerosol jet printing (AJP) is a versatile technique suitable for large-area, fine-feature patterning of both rigid and flexible substrates with a variety of functional inks. In particular, AJP can tolerate ink viscosities between 1 and 1000 cP, with printing resolution of the order of 10 μm, thus making it attractive for flexible and printed electronics. This work investigates in detail significant aspects of ink-substrate combination and substrate temperature that are highly relevant to AJP. In order to do this, thin conducting silver lines are printed using AJP on both rigid (glass and silicon) as well as flexible (polyimide) substrates. The correlation between the various deposition parameters and the 'quality' of the printed lines are evaluated, through measurements of electrical conductivity under different experimental conditions. Based on our findings, a framework is proposed through which the morphology of AJP lines can be controlled and assessed for applications in large area and flexible electronic devices.

Description

Keywords

aerosol jet printing, printed electronics, silver nanoparticle ink, flexible electronics

Journal Title

Flexible and Printed Electronics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2058-8585
2058-8585

Volume Title

2

Publisher

Institute of Physics
Sponsorship
EPSRC (1352598)
European Research Council (639526)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G037221/1)
SK-N, MS and YSC are grateful for financial support from the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant (Grant No. ERC-2014-STG-639526, NANOGEN). MS and YSC acknowledge studentship funding from the Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust. CB thanks the EPSRC Cambridge NanoDTC, EP/G037221/1, for studentship funding.
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