Controllable synthesis of silver nanoparticles in hyperbranched macromolecule templates for printed flexible electronics

Abstract

In this work, a series of different generation hyperbranched macromolecules were synthesized and exploited for the template-directed synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The results obtained from UV-vis spectra, transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images showed that the synthesized AgNPs was nearly uniform, monodisperse and the mean AgNP size was 31.2 ± 3.6, 25.6 ± 2.7 and 21.8 ± 2.2 nm, corresponding to the respective generation of hyperbranched macromolecules employed. Based on the as-synthesized AgNPs, a sequence of flexible electrocircuits were successfully fabricated by ink-jet printing technique and exhibited very low resistivity in the range of 8.26 × 10⁻⁸–7.62 × 10⁻⁸ Ω m after laser sintering treatment. This method provided a facile and efficient strategy to synthesize uniform and monodisperse AgNPs, and would have enormous potential in applications for flexible electronics, electrochemical devices and biosensor assembly.