Evaluation of printed transparent conductive layers

Abstract

Currently, the printing of functional materials is still becoming more significant. Very promising is the area of printed conducting polymers, which are nowadays already commercially available in a form of printing inks. To control the production process and to ensure a good functionality of resulting printed devices, the quality of printed layers must be further characterized and evaluated. In this work, different methods of a physical study were applied to assess the properties of screen-printed conductive layers on the base of PEDOT/PSS polymeric complex (e.g. electrical measurements, profilometry, UV-VIS spectroscopy, optical and scanning electron microscopy, photoacoustics and image analysis). The samples were prepared using the screen-printable dispersion Clevios S V3 from the producer Heraeus. The functional layers were deposited on several flexible polymer foils via screen-printing. In order to obtain a set of samples varying in thickness, the sieves with different mesh densities were used. In these prepared layers various properties were studied (e.g. thickness, surface morphology, resistance and specific resistivity, UV-VIS spectra and printing resolution). Finally, the influence of printing parameters on the resulting properties of the layers and the suitability of the used evaluation methods are discussed.