Effect of O2, N2 and H2 on annealing of pad printed high conductive Ag-Cu nano-alloy electrodes

Abstract

In this study, annealing of pad printed Ag-Cu based conducting ink was studied in oxidizing, inert and reducing atmosphere to verify its oxidation dependent conductivity. Ag-Cu manually was formulated adopting polyol method; where silver nitrate and copper nitrate serve as initial metal precursors. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), ethylene glycol and sodium borohydride act as a stabilizer, solvent and reducing agent respectively. The nanoalloys were with an average particle size ?48 ±15 nm, capped with polyvinylpyrrolidone to avoid agglomeration and stable in non-polar solvents. Formation of nanoalloy, Ag 90 wt%-Cu 10 wt%, was verified through a peak shift in UV-visible spectroscopy, found at 470 nm along with Nelson-Relay curve fitting and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study. The calculated lattice parameter of nanoalloy ?4.034 Å, was in between pure silver and copper. The crystallite size was calculated using Debye-Scherrer, Williamson-Hall isotropic strain model and Halder-Wagner method. Electrode patterns were printed on a glass substrate by pad printing and were annealed under O<inf>2</inf>, N<inf>2</inf> and H<inf>2</inf> atmosphere to study the oxidation kinetics of copper. A maximum conductivity of -6.6 ×;105 S m-1 was observed in inert atmosphere annealing as the conductivity is solely depends on the oxidation of copper; appears with uttermost Cu0 and least Cu2+ in x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. High conductive space required between manually and dispersion ink can have a potential application as an electrode in printed electronics. Further refinement of size of the nanopaticles by polyol method could help to obtain the effect of quantum confinement. © 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd.