Disclosed herein, in various embodiments, are stable, high performing nanoparticle compositions suitable for printing, such as by inkjet printing, as well as processes and devices for making and/or using the same.
Fabrication of electronic circuit elements using liquid deposition techniques may be beneficial as such techniques provide potentially low-cost alternatives to conventional mainstream amorphous silicon technologies for electronic applications such as thin film transistors (TFTs), light-emitting diodes (LEDs), RFID tags, photovoltaics, etc. However, the deposition and/or patterning of functional electrodes, pixel pads, and conductive traces, lines and tracks which meet the conductivity, processing, and cost requirements for practical applications have been a great challenge. The metal, silver (Ag), is of particular interest as conductive elements for electronic devices because silver is much lower in cost than gold (Au) and it possesses much better environmental stability than copper (Cu).
Silver nanoparticles have been extensively examined. However, previous ink compositions containing silver nanoparticles have typically had poor jettability, i.e. they could not be printed using conventional inkjet printing technologies. Typically, the ink would block the nozzle, drip out or dry out on the printer head, and/or the ink droplets would misfire. The printed features had low resolution and/or suffered from the “coffee ring” effect, wherein the particles in a given droplet end up along the circumference of the circle having a center where the droplet was deposited on the substrate (i.e. a non-uniform deposition). Ideally, deposited inkjet-printed lines should be smooth, even, and straight.
Jettable ink compositions would be desirable to enable drop-on-demand deposition and printing with functional features such as electrodes and interconnects for electronic devices.