Laser Induced Forward Transfer of High Viscosity Silver Paste for New Metallization Methods in Photovoltaic and Flexible Electronics Industry

Laser Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) has been studied in the past as a promising approach for precise metallization in electronics using metallic inks and pastes. In this work we present large area metallization using LIFT of fully commercial silver-based pastes initially designed for solar cell screen-printing. We discuss the mechanisms for the material transfer both in ns and ps regimes of irradiation of these high viscosity materials, and the potential use of this technique in the photovoltaic industry (both in standard c-Si solar cells and thin film technologies) and flexible electronics devices. In particular we summarize the results of our group in this field, demonstrating that our approach is capable of improving the aspect ratio of the standard metallization patterns achieved with screen-printing technologies in those technological fields and, in addition, of fulfilling the requirements imposed by the mechanical properties of the substrates in flexible electronic applications.