Aerosol Jet Printing of Conductive Patterns on Paper Substrate

Abstract

Aerosol jet printing (AJP) is a promising method for microscale digital additive manufacturing for printed electronics. However, it requires a high sintering temperature (280 ° C) and a long sintering time (e.g. 12 hours on a glass substrate) to guarantee a highly conductive metallic structure, which confined AJP to limited types of substrates and applicati ons. In this paper, a fabrication method to use cellulose fiber paper as substrates for AJP printing is proposed. With the proposed approach, the sintering temperature is reduced to 80 ° C and the sintering time is shortened to 220 minutes for the printing on printing papers. The printed structure can have a sheet resistance of 0.0203 Ω/□ with good adhesion to the substrate. The effect of folding on the conductivity is examined, and an application to wireless power transfer serving as a resonator is demonstrated. The proposed paper-based AJP printed electronics can be folded, bent, and pasted to any surface. This combination of AJP with paper substrates opens a window for low-cost flexible, high resolution printed electronics.