Abstract
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•Formulation of transparent and particle-free silver inks based on silver-ethanolamine-formate complex (SEFC).•Electrical assessment with microwave-plasma sintering vs thermal annealing.•High conductivity of SEFC-based ink films with microwave-plasma sintering, applicable for flexible electronic devices.
Transparent and stable silver ink based on silver-ethanolamine-formate complex (SEFC) was formulated, wherein both ethanolamine and formate species act as in-situ complexing solvent and reducing agent. as-formulated particle-free SEFC-based inks (22.44wt%Ag) were applied on glass and polyimide (PI) substrates, followed by annealing the deposited films with either thermal heating at 180°C for 30min or microwave-plasma irradiation. The former resulted in conductivities of 3.5×104S/cm (on PI) and 9.1×104S/cm (on glass), and the latter yielded 8.3×104S/cm (on PI) and 1.4×105S/cm (on glass) which is the same order of magnitude of bulk silver (6.3×105S/cm).