Selective Laser Sintering of Laser Printed Ag Nanoparticle Micropatterns at High Repetition Rates

Materials

Nuno Braz¹  Simon Tuohy¹  Dimitris Karnakis¹  Ayala Kabla²  Fernando de la Vega²  Semyon Melamed²  Ioanna Zergioti³  Kostas Andritsos³  Ioannis Theodorakos³  Filimon Zacharatos³  Antonios Hatziapostolou⁴  Panagiotis Karvounis⁴ 

[1] Oxford Lasers Ltd., 8 Moorbrook Park, Didcot, Oxon OX11 7HP, UK;PV Nano Cell Ltd., 8 Hamasger st., P.O. Box 236 Migdal Ha’Emek, Migdal Haemek 2310102, Israel;Physics Department, Zografou Campus, National Technical University of Athens, 15780 Athens, Greece;School of Engineering, University of West Attica, Campus 1, 12243 Aigaleo, Greece;

关键词: laser sintering;    laser induced forward transfer;    silver nanoparticle inks;    heat affected zone;    high speed laser processing;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ma11112142

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The increasing development of flexible and printed electronics has fueled substantial advancements in selective laser sintering, which has been attracting interest over the past decade. Laser sintering of metal nanoparticle dispersions in particular (from low viscous inks to high viscous pastes) offers significant advantages with respect to more conventional thermal sintering or curing techniques. Apart from the obvious lateral selectivity, the use of short-pulsed and high repetition rate lasers minimizes the heat affected zone and offers unparalleled control over a digital process, enabling the processing of stacked and pre-structured layers on very sensitive polymeric substrates. In this work, the authors have conducted a systematic investigation of the laser sintering of micro-patterns comprising Ag nanoparticle high viscous inks: The effect of laser pulse width within the range of 20⁻200 nanoseconds (ns), a regime which many commercially available, high repetition rate lasers operate in, has been thoroughly investigated experimentally in order to define the optimal processing parameters for the fabrication of highly conductive Ag patterns on polymeric substrates. The in-depth temperature profiles resulting from the effect of laser pulses of varying pulse widths have been calculated using a numerical model relying on the finite element method, which has been fed with physical parameters extracted from optical and structural characterization. Electrical characterization of the resulting sintered micro-patterns has been benchmarked against the calculated temperature profiles, so that the resistivity can be associated with the maximal temperature value. This quantitative correlation offers the possibility to predict the optimal process window in future laser sintering experiments. The reported computational and experimental findings will foster the wider adoption of laser micro-sintering technology for laboratory and industrial use.

【 授权许可】

Unknown