Abstract
In this paper we present the lamination curing as a stand-alone method
to activate the silver nanoparticle (Ag NP) inkjet printed angle sensors
on a 0.14 mm PET substrate, with a desktop printer. (With the term
“lamination curing”, we refer passing the printed sample through a
lamination machine, without any actual laminating purpose, only for
curing.) We compared the method with the oven curing, which is the
widest used method for the intended sensors, and found that lamination
cured sensors give lower sheet resistance, lower fabrication uncertainty
and more consistent angle sensing behaviors with higher sensing
performance. Different curing parameters are inspected and a process
under 3 minutes is achieved giving a 0.06 Ohm/square sheet resistance.
For such a low sheet resistance, presented method has the lowest thermal
curing time among all single layer Ag NP printing studies in the
literature. An experimental model is presented for the sheet resistance
- aspect ratio relation for both methods. Time dependent resistance
shifts of the lamination cured sensors are also inspected and proved to
be insignificant. We state lamination curing as an advantageous and
reliable alternative to oven curing and other fast curing methods both
for sensor and circuitry printing implementations.