Towards Sinter-free Printing of Photovoltaic Cell Interconnects

金属薄膜广泛应用于各种技术，如太阳能电池和电子印刷电路板。在这些应用中，喷墨印刷已成为制造电触点的一种实用且低成本的途径。然而，现有的制造技术使用的油墨通常需要最后的热处理来巩固或“烧结”薄膜。如果最后一步可以消除，通过沉积完全致密的薄膜，那么喷墨制造工艺可以应用于温度敏感的基片，如塑料或脆弱的半导体材料。该项目的目的是开发“无烧结”喷墨制造工艺，通过采用为其他薄膜工艺开发的油墨前体，并利用喷墨工艺技术的显着优势，例如直接写入互连或电线。如果成功，该项目将代表这种类型的薄膜的制造方法的一个步骤变化。

Metal thin films are used in a wide variety of technologies, such as solar cells and printed circuit boards for electronics. Inkjet printing has emerged as a practical and low-cost route for manufacturing electrical contacts in these applications. However existing manufacturing technologies use inks that often require a final heat treatment to consolidate or 'sinter' the film. If this last step can be eliminated, by depositing fully dense films, then the inkjet manufacturing process could be applied to temperature sensitive substrates like plastics or vulnerable semiconductor materials.The purpose of this project is to develop 'sinter-free' inkjet manufacturing processes, by taking ink precursors developed for other thin film processes, and exploiting them to use the significant benefits of inkjet process technology e.g. the direct writing of interconnects or wires. If successful, the project will represent a step-change in the manufacturing methods for this type of film.