Metallic nanoparticles for conductive inks

Conductive inks are mainly based on metallic particles. At the moment silver flake inks govern the market but other solutions appear constantly. These include more economical materials such as copper and copper oxide flakes and metallic nanoparticles having improved performance. Nanoparticle based inks allow novel applications to be created through new material combination possibilities. Improved performance typically means higher conductivity at lower sintering temperature, inkjet printability and possibility to create thinner patterns with higher resolution. Main challenge is the high cost of manufacturing nanoparticles. Other challenge is for example high investments on R&D actions to create stable ink formulations. This presentation gives an overview of metallic particles used in conductive inks at the moment. In addition, an economical gas phase synthesis method to manufacture metallic nanoparticles for example for conductive inks is presented. Method has been developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and is operated in pilot scale at the moment.