Faculty of Science and Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea, UK.
Sci Rep. 2023 Mar 28;13(1):5080. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-32044-2.
Copper potentially provides a cost-effective replacement for silver in printed electronic circuitry with diverse applications in healthcare, solar energy, IOT devices and automotive applications. The primary challenge facing copper is that it readily oxidizes to its non-conductive state during the sintering process. Photonic sintering offers a means of overcoming the oxidation by which rapid conversion from discrete nano-micro particles to fully or partially sintered products occurs. An experimental study of flash lamp sintering of mixed nano copper and mixed nano/ micro copper thick film screen printed structures on FTO coated glass was carried out. It shows that there may be multiple energy windows which can successfully sinter the thick film copper print preventing detrimental copper oxidation. Under optimum conditions, the conductivities achieved in under 1 s was (3.11-4.3 × 10 Ω m) matched those achieved in 90 min at 250 °C under reducing gas conditions, offering a significant improvement in productivity and reduced energy demand. Also present a good film stability of a 14% increase in line resistance of 100 N material, around 10% for the 50N50M ink and only around 2% for the 20N80M.
铜在具有多种应用的印刷电子电路中为银提供了一种具有成本效益的替代品，这些应用包括医疗保健、太阳能、物联网设备和汽车应用。铜面临的主要挑战是，在烧结过程中，它很容易氧化成非导电状态。光子烧结提供了一种克服氧化的方法，通过这种方法，离散的纳米-微颗粒可以快速转化为完全或部分烧结的产品。对 FTO 涂层玻璃上混合纳米铜和混合纳米/微铜厚膜丝网印刷结构的闪光灯烧结进行了实验研究。结果表明，可能存在多个能量窗口，可以成功烧结厚膜铜印刷，防止有害的铜氧化。在最佳条件下，在不到 1 秒内获得的电导率为（3.11-4.3×10Ωm），与在还原气体条件下 250°C 下 90 分钟获得的电导率（3.11-4.3×10Ωm）相匹配，这在提高生产效率和降低能源需求方面有显著的进步。此外，还表现出良好的薄膜稳定性，100N 材料的线电阻增加了 14%，50N50M 墨水约为 10%，而 20N80M 墨水仅约为 2%。
