Filling and Wiping Properties of Silver Nano Paste in Trench Layer of Metal Mesh Type Transparent Conducting Electrode Films for Touch Screen Panel Application

A metal mesh TCE film is fabricated using a series of processes such as UV imprinting of a transparent trench pattern (with a width of $2-5{\mu}m$) onto a PET film, filling it with silver paste, wiping of the surface, and heat-curing the silver paste. In this work nanosized (40-50 nm) silver particles are synthesized and mixed with submicron (250-300 nm)-sized silver particles to prepare silver paste for the fabrication of metal mesh-type TCE films. The filling of these silver pastes into the patterned trench layer is examined using a specially designed filling machine and the rheological testing of the silver pastes. The wiping of the trench layer surface to remove any residual silver paste or particles is tested with various mixture solvents, and ethyl cellosolve acetate (ECA):DI water = 90:10 wt% is found to give the best result. The silver paste with 40-50 nm Ag:250-300 nm Ag in a 10:90 wt% mixture gives the highest electrical conductance. The metal mesh TCE film obtained with this silver paste in an optimized process exhibits a light transmittance of 90.4% and haze at 1.2%, which is suitable for TSP application.

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