Silver ions assisted nanosoldering electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing of RFID antennas

Abstract

High-resolution electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing of radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna are highly desirable. Also, some traditional post-processing treatment methods have many limitations. Herein, high-resolution EHD printing and joining of AgNWs were combined to fabricate RFID antennas with a high resolution of 50 μm by introducing silver ions in the AgNW ink. During the process of silver ions-assisted nanosoldering EHD printing, the Ag ions are reduced when the droplet produced by EHD printing reaches the substrate and then selectively deposit near the junctions of AgNWs, thus improving the sheet resistance from 20.8 Ω•sq ^-1 to 15.6 Ω•sq ^-1 . Based on this new method and its high resolution, flexible RFID antennas were fabricated. The RF performance, bending reliability, folding reliability, and low-temperature reliability of silver-assisted antenna is more superior than pure AgNW antenna.