Laser Induced Forward Transfer of Ag Nanoparticle inks for flexible Organic Thin Film Transistors

RoLA-FLEX consortium partners NTUA, FLEX, PVN, UOXF and PCAS have demonstrated the conformal laser printing and sintering of silver nanoparticle inks for the digital and additive manufacturing of Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFT) involved in the next generation of organic displays.

Employing the so-called “Laser Induced Forward Transfer” technique, Ag nanoparticle inks were printed to linear structures with linewidth down to 80 μm and line-height of 500 nm on flexible chips consisting of multiple functional layers. These linear microelectrodes were then laser sintered to obtain metallic conductivity and served as top gate electrodes for OTFT structures developed for a next-generation organic liquid crystal display (OLCD). Organic semiconductor performance tests indicated that the laser fabricated devices achieved performances comparable to the standard manufacturing process (photolithography), implemented in a significantly smaller number of processing steps and without the involvement of any masks (Figure 1).

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Figure 1 Laser printing and sintering for the fabrication of a flexible OTFT. (a) Schematic representation of laser printing and sintering process (b) Conformal printing and sintering of top gate electrode lines (c) Flexible test elements with organic semiconductor performance comparable with devices manufactured with standard fabrication techniques