Abstract
Two methods to fabricate metal conductive patterns including reactive inkjet printing and reactive sintering were investigated. The silver printed lines were prepared from reactive inkjet printing of silver nitrate and L-ascorbic acid. Alternatively, the silver lines were prepared by the reactive sintering process of ethylene glycol vapor at 250 °C and formic acid vapor at 150 °C. In reactive printing, we investigated the effect of the number of printing cycles and the effect of silver nitrate concentration on the properties of the conductive patterns obtained. In reactive sintering, we investigated the usage of formic acid and ethylene glycol as reducing agents. The effect of reactive sintering time on the properties of the conductive patterns obtained was studied. As compared to reactive inkjet printing, the reactive sintering process gives more smooth and contiguous pattern resulting in lower resistivity. The resistivity of the silver line obtained by ethylene glycol vapor reduction at 250 °C for 30 min was 12 µΩ cm, which is about eight times higher than that of bulk silver. In contrast, the copper lines were fabricated by reactive inkjet printing and reactive sintering using various conditions of formic acid, ethylene glycol and hydrogen atmosphere, the copper lines printed have no conductivity due to the formation of copper oxide.