Highly conductive ink jet printed films of nanosilver particles for printable electronics

The thermal behavior of the ink-jet printed conductive films composed of Ag particles was investigated. The use of the nanosized metallic particles allows the formation of the highly conductive patterns by ink-jet printing followed by heat-treatment at temperatures much lower than the bulk melting temperature. Two different sized Ag nanoparticles were used to study the size influence on sintering temperature of the granular metal films. The resistivity variation and microstructure of the Ag films was monitored as a function of temperature using a four-point probe and scanning electron microscopy as well as thermal analysis. (c) 2005 The Electrochemical Society.