Properties of Conductive Features Printed on Papers and Foils
Michal Šandrej *, Milan Mikula, Vladimír Dvonka
Institute of Polymer Materials, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Radlinského 9, 812 37 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
E-mail: * michal.sandrej@stuba.sk
Abstract: Two types of coated paper sheets and plastic foil, treated by corona discharge (in nitrogen at atmospheric pressure), were used as substrates for printing by conductive inks using inkjet technique and pen plotter. Printed inks were formulated on commercial water-based PEDOT:PSS and different concentrations of additives, as water, dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), isopropanol (IPA), and others. The ink formulations were characterized by viscosity and surface energy, substrates and prints by AFM, STM microscopy and by FTIR, UV-Vis and NIR spectroscopy. Printed structures, lines with different thickness and full areas were characterized namely by electric conductivity and topography. The influence of substrate quality, plasma treatment and ink formulation onto conductivities are discussed. Addition of 5 % of DMSO increased conductivity of features considerably. Surface roughness, wetting and imbibition were key factors of features quality. Plasma treatment as well as IPA enhanced the printability and structure conductivities of foils particularly printed by plotter. Sufficient conductivities of ink-jet prints were achieved just by repeated printing (up to 10 times), so the misregistration is the limiting factor of print quality.
Keywords: conductivity, PEDOT, printed foil, paper
Full paper in Portable Document Format: acs_0081.pdf
Acta Chimica Slovaca, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2011, pp. 59—67