Abstract
Indium tin oxide (ITO) is one of the few materials available that display a high transparency in the visible wavelength region and at the same time can conduct electrical currents. Thus it is widespread in many optoelectronic applications such as displays or solar cells. Layers of this material are commonly deposited by vacuum deposition methods which are not compatible with inexpensive production methods such as roll-to-roll processing or printed electronics in general. In this work, we demonstrate the generation of arbitrarily shaped ITO layers by laser induced forward transfer of ITO nanoparticles. The transferred particle ink volumes range in the sub picoliter regime. Feature sizes as small as 20 μm are produced without any outward flow or “coffee-stain” effects. Furthermore, the feasibility of excimer laser consolidation of these nanoparticulate layers in ambient air for the generation of dense ITO films is shown. Conductivities of over 4000 Ω−1 m−1 were achieved. The presented methods are a promising alternative for the generation of transparent conducting layers for the inexpensive production of optoelectronics.
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Acknowledgements
The support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Graduiertenkolleg 1161/2) is gratefully acknowledged. Additionally, we are thankful for the support by Evonik Industries AG and also for the production of the particle suspensions by Daniel Kilian at the Institute of Particle Technology at the University of Erlangen. Moreover, the authors gratefully acknowledge funding of the Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT) by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of the German excellence initiative as well as the support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
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Baum, M., Kim, H., Alexeev, I. et al. Generation of transparent conductive electrodes by laser consolidation of LIFT printed ITO nanoparticle layers. Appl. Phys. A 111, 799–805 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-013-7646-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-013-7646-y