Inkjet-printed silver tracks on different paper substrates

When printed electronics is combined with paper-based microfluidics, advanced features such as digital readout and electrochemical sensing can be achieved for point-of-care diagnostics. Chromatography paper is significant in paper-based microfluidics, while photo paper is the accepted substrate for printed electronics. In this work, conductive silver tracks were printed with a commercial silver nanopaste (Harima NPS-J) onto two types of commercial photo paper and chromatography paper. The sintering temperature and the number of printed layers were investigated to optimize the fabrication process. The track line width was varied from 100 mu m to 1.5 mm for both dimensional and electrical characterization. The silver tracks on the photo paper were found to have similar resistivity as bulk silver. However, the conductivity on the chromatography paper was not adequate, and printing of multiple layers is necessary. The sheet resistance for a range of circuit frequencies is extracted as a useful design parameter for electronic networks of silver tracks. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.