1. Using an Office Inkjet Printer to Define the Formation of Copper Films on Paper
- Author
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Sushant Kumar, Venugopal Santhanam, K. J. Vinoy, and Vijayashree T. Bhat
- Subjects
Fabrication ,Materials science ,business.industry ,chemistry.chemical_element ,Nanoparticle ,Chemical Engineering ,Copper ,Silver nanoparticle ,Computer Science Applications ,Kapton ,Silver nitrate ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Electrical Communication Engineering ,chemistry ,Electronic engineering ,Optoelectronics ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,business ,Electrical conductor ,Sheet resistance - Abstract
A low-cost fabrication process for forming conductive copper lines on paper is presented. An office inkjet printer was used to deposit desired patterns of silver nitrate and tannic acid solutions sequentially on paper. Silver nitrate was instantaneously reduced in situ on paper by tannic acid at room temperature to form silver nanoparticles, which acted as catalysts for the subsequent electroless deposition of copper. The copper films were 1.8 mu m thick, and the sheet resistance of the copper film on paper was 9 Omega/square. A dual monopole ultrawide band antenna was fabricated on paper and its performance was equivalent to that of a similar antenna fabricated on a copper-film covered Kapton substrate using conventional lithographic processes. The paper-based conductive copper films fabricated using the facile process presented herein will aid the development of low-cost flexible circuits and sensors.
- Published
- 2014