Kinetic study on low temperature coalescence of carboxylate-protected Ag nanoparticles for interconnect applications

Abstract

Reduction and coalescence for carboxylate-capped Ag nanoparticles can be achieved in several minutes by soaking the nanoparticle deposits in ascorbic acid aqueous solution. The reduced deposits exhibit a low electrical resistivity in the same order as with bulk Ag. The effect of the chain length of the carboxylates and the kinetics of particle coalescence were explored in this study. Bendable conductive films can be fabricated on a PDMS substrate using this low temperature chemical reduction method.