Adhesion mechanisms of nanoparticle silver to substrate materials: identification

Nanoparticle silver (NPS) conductors are increasingly being investigated for printed electronics applications. However, the adhesion mechanism of the nanoparticle silver to substrate materials has not been identified yet. In particular, the adhesion of NPS to organic materials such as the widely used polyimide Kapton HN and Kapton FPC dry films is concerned with low adhesion strength because the processed polymer surface is chemically inert. Moreover, its adhesion to substrate materials such as benzocyclobutene (BCB), copper and aluminum was found to be very weak. Therefore, in this paper, the mechanisms of NPS adhesion to organic and inorganic materials are identified as the first step in improving NPS adhesion strength. Improving the adhesion strength of NPS will be the key issue for printed electronics applications. The adhesion of NPS to substrate materials was found to be mainly attributed to van der Waals forces based on particle adhesion mechanisms. This finding provides the initiative of developing an adhesion prediction model of NPS to substrate materials in order to provide guidelines for improving the NPS adhesion strength to the substrate materials used in printed electronics.