• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.15-24
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• 2014

Recently, a variety of printing technologies, including ink jet, gravure, and roll-to-roll (R2R) printing, has generated intensive interest in the application of flexible and wearable electronic devices. However, the actual use of printing technique is much limited because the sintering process of the printed nanoparticle inks remains as a huge practical drawback. In the fabrication of the conductive metal film, a post-sintering process is required to achieve high conductivity of the printed film. The conventional thermal sintering takes considerable sintering times, and requires high temperatures. For application to flexible devices, the sintering temperature should be as low as possible to minimize the damage of polymer substrate. Several alternative sintering methods were suggested, such as laser, halogen lamp, infrared, plasma, ohmic, microwave, and etc. Eventually, the new sintering technique should be applicable to large area, R2R, and polymer substrate as well as low cost. This article reviews progress in recent technologies for several sintering methods. The advantages and disadvantages of each technology will be reviewed. Several issues for the application in R2R process are discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.263-272
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• 2013

Printed electronics creates electrically functional devices by printing on variety of substrates. Printing typically uses common printing equipment or other low-cost equipment suitable for defining patterns on material, such as screen printing, flexography, gravure, offset lithography and inkjet. Compared to conventional manufacturing of microelectronics, printed electronics is characterized by simpler and more cost-effective fabrication of high and low volume products. Now there is huge effort towards printing many other more functional components, from displays to transistors to photovoltaic cells, using the full range of printing technologies - from inkjet to roll to roll analogue print techniques. The market for printed electronics will rise from $1.99 billion in 2010 to $55.10 billion in 2020. In 2030, this industry could be $300 billion - larger than the silicon semiconductor industry - from lighting to displays[8].

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2279-2284
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• 2007

This study is intended to analyze the effect of thin ink-film thickness around rotating printing roll on the printing quality in the gravure printing process which is used for making electronics circuit like a RFID tag with a conductive ink. The present work numerically estimates the film thickness around rotating roller partially immersed in ink, for which the volume of fluid (VOF) method was adopted to figure out the film formation process around rotating roller. Parameter studies were performed to compare the effect of ink viscosity, surface tension, roller rotating speed, immersed angle on the film thickness. The result indicates that the film thickness has a strong dependency on the fluid viscosity, while the surface tension has negligible effect.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.476-481
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• 2012

Among the various roll-to-roll printing technologies such as gravure, gravure-offset, and reverse offset printing, reverse offset printing has the advantage of fine patterning, with less than 5 ${\mu}m$ line width. However, it involves complex processes, consisting of 1) the coating process, 2) the off process, 3) the patterning process, and 4) the set process of the ink. Each process demands various ink properties, including viscosity, surface tension, stickiness, and adhesion with substrate or clich$\acute{e}$; these properties are critical factors for the printing quality of fine patterning. In this study, Ag nano ink was developed for reverse offset printing and the effect of polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP), used as a capping agent of Ag nano particles, on the printing quality was investigated. Ag nano particles with a diameter of ~60 nm were synthesized using the conventional polyol synthesis process. Ethanol and ethylene glycol monopropyl ether(EGPE) were used together as the main solvent in order to control the drying and absorption of the solvents during the printing process. The rheological behavior, especially ink adhesion and stickiness, was controlled with washing processes that have an effect on the offset process and that played a critical role in the fine patterning. The electrical and thermal behaviors were analyzed according to the content of PVP in the Ag ink. Finally, an Ag mesh pattern with a line width of 10 ${\mu}m$ was printed using reverse offset printing; this printing showed an electrical resistivity of 36 ${\mu}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ after sintering at $200^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.589-595
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• 2013

Solution processed conjugated molecules enable to manufacture various electronic devices by unconventional and cost effective patterning methods as screen or gravure printing. Spin-coating is the most popularly used method to form conjugated polymeric film for various electronic devices. The coating method has certain disadvantages such as a large amount of unwanted wastes, difficulty forming a film with a large area, and impossible to apply roll-to-roll manufacturing. We present here a promising alternative coating method, bar-coating for conjugated polymer film and OLED with the bar coated light emitting layer. In this papers, we show atomic force microscope images of spin- and bar-coated Poly[(9,9-di-n-octylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-alt-(benzo[2,1,3]thiadiazol-4,8-diyl)] (F8BT) films on substrate. The bar-coated film showed a slight lower RMS roughness (1.058 [nm]) than spin-coated film (1.767 [nm]). It means the bar-coating is suitable method to form light emitting layers in OLEDs. By using bar-coating process, an OLED obtained with 4.7 [cd/A] in maximum current efficiency.