Pulsed light sintering characteristics of inkjet-printed nanosilver films on a polymer substrate

In this work, the microstructures of inkjet-printed nanosilver films sintered by intense pulsed light (IPL) were systematically analyzed and correlated with the electrical properties. Nanosilver films with various dimensions were inkjet-printed and sintered at different light intensities to investigate the effects of the film dimension and light intensity on the sintering characteristics. For comparison purposes, the same inkjet-printed films were also thermally sintered at 210 degrees C for 1 h. Consecutive light pulses from a xenon lamp induced film swelling and the corresponding hollow microstructures of the inkjet nanosilver films. The resistance of IPL-sintered films was inversely proportional to the light intensity, and the resultant conductivity comparable to the thermally sintered one was achieved within just a few tens of ms, without damaging a polymer substrate. While all the thermally sintered patterns experienced shrinkage during the sintering process, the IPL-sintered ones could keep their initial dimension at a certain light intensity.