Printable Conductive Inks

Background of Invention

Silver possesses excellent electrical conductivity, surface plasmon resonance, and high reflectivity, leading to its use in a wide variety of applications including microelectronic circuitry, gas sensors, low emissivity coatings and transparent conductive electrodes. Significant effort has been made toward the development of printable silver inks using nanoparticle suspensions and organo-metallic precursors. However, challenges remain in producing reliable, highly conductive, small scale features due to the stability of ink precursors, consistency of nanoparticles, and sintering temperatures that are incompatible with desired substrates.

Technology Description

Researchers at OSU have developed a method for integrating a novel in situ method of producing reactive metal inks with a high precision printing process to fabricate silver features on the scale of 100’s of microns, all at room temperature. Known chemistries are used in a novel microreactor to produce reactive ink compositions in situ to be delivered through a novel printing technique. Through precise control of the reagent chemistry, the ink can be printed into fine features that require no post process annealing or sintering and achieve conductivity over half that of bulk metallic silver. The process can be used with a variety of metals and enables the production of highly conductive metal features on a variety of substrates, including flexible polymers or fabric.