Comparison of Thermal and Electrical Sintering of Aerosol Silver Nanoparticles in Process of Aerosol Jet Printing

Abstract

This article presents a study and comparison of two sintering processes of aerosol nanoparticles in process of aerosol jet printing. Silver lines were deposited on glass and plastic substrates. Then obtained lines were sintered in two ways, specifically, thermal and electric methods. As a result of experiments, it was found that during the deposition process, the width of printed lines, with the same printing parameters, is in the range from 92.3 to 110.4 μm and the height from 1.1 to 1.4 μm. The resistivity of lines on the glass substrate, sintered in two ways, is approximately 12 μΩ·cm. While the resistivity of the lines on the plastic substrate, sintered by electric and thermal methods, is 11.1 and 17.2 μΩ·cm, respectively. Thus, electrical sintering allows one to achieve a smaller (by a factor of 1.5) electrical resistivity of lines on a plastic substrate than thermal sintering, which makes it possible to obtain conductive flexible structures with better characteristics.