Hello everybody!
Nice achievement: a team used a
commercial inkjet printer, filled a cartridge with
silver nanoparticles ink, and produced
printed circuit boards on paper, polyester film...
Free access to the paper there:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2493486yes, that's possible.
The conductivity may be less perfect than copper tracks on traditional glassfiber+epoxy, but some uses can live with that, and
flexible printed circuits made quickly and individually are distinct advantages.
The observed
conductivity worsens when the circuit is bent, and with ageing as well - supposedly because the nanoparticles only touch an other after drying but make no continuum.
Hence I wonder if the nanoparticles can be pressed together more efficiently:
- With a
rolling pin? It achieves a limited pressure.
- With
a hammer and an anvil. Putting the printed circuit between paper sheets maybe, as is done for gold leafs.
Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy