Highly Conductive Silver Flake/nanowire Composites Inks and 3D Printing Processing in Flexible Electrodes Application

Abstract

Nowadays, conductive ink has attracted our attention in research and industry due to their popularity in printed electronics. Among various conductive inks, silver ink has been explored deeply and widely because its high conductivity and stability. However, with the requirement of different printed electronics especially flexible electronics, good mechanical properties become more and more important. Most researcher focus on how to formulate silver inks with high conductivity and good mechanical properties. In this report, high conductive silver flake/nanowire composite is formulated and characterized with various instruments. A simple method to modify the contact of flakes with silver oxide nanoparticles is introduced to further improve the conductivity of silver inks. The function of silver nanowires in silver inks to increase the flexibility of silver electrodes is illustrated in detail. Also, the process of printing silver inks on curved surface with good resolution by 3D printer has been explored and a variety of printing parameters were studied.