Direct ink-jet printing of silver nitrate–silver nanowire hybrid inks to fabricate silver conductive lines

Abstract

In this paper, silver nanowires were synthesized by a polyol method in the presence of PVP with Pt seeds. The silver nanowires were added to silver nitrate to form a binary hybrid ink to fabricate silver conductive lines by ink-jet printing on a flexible Kapton^® substrate. The silver nanowires were used as an additive to the silver inks to lower the concentration of silver nitrate. The additive increased the ink's viscosity and promoted the conductivity of silver lines produced by ink-jet printing. Using a 20 wt% silver nitrate–silver nanowire ink, continuous and smooth silver conductive lines with a resistivity of 7.31 × 10⁻⁵ Ω cm could be fabricated by the ink-jet printing system.