SBIR Phase I: Reactive Silver Inks for High Performance Printed Electronics

The broader impact/commercial impact of this project is centered on its ability to significantly enhance the conductive ink applications in the printed electronics market. Printed electronics is dominated by high viscosity silver pastes for screen-printing applications. However, these pastes are extremely high cost, require high annealing temperatures, and do not achieve the high conductivities with its metal content. Electroninks? particle-free silver pastes open the possibility of using of a low silver weight percentage paste that can achieve high conductivities at low temperatures enabling a range of new applications in printed electronics. This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project will focus on optimizing novel silver ink formulations that have a low weight percentage of silver (10-20%) that achieve much higher conductivity (50-90% of bulk silver) than current silver pastes (5-10% of bulk silver) at temperatures that are compatible with low-cost substrates (<150ºC). Electroninks will focus on novel silver precursor chemistries that allow full gelation of otherwise low-viscosity inks for screen-printing applications.