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Intense Pulsed Light Sintering (IPL) uses pulsed, large-area, broad-spectrum visible light from a xenon lamp for rapid fusion of nanomaterials into films or patterns used in flexible sensors, solar cells, displays and other applications. Past work on the IPL of silver nanoparticles has shown that a self-damping coupling between densification and optical absorption governs the evolution of the deposited nanomaterial temperature during IPL. This work examines the influence of the nanomaterial shape distribution on this coupling and on the temperature evolution in IPL of silver nanowire–nanoparticle composite films. The film thickness, resistivity, micromorphology, crystallinity and optical properties are compared for varying ratios of nanowire to nanoparticle content in the film. It is shown for the first time, that increasing the nanowire content reduces the maximum film temperature during IPL from 240 °C to 150 °C and substantially alters the temperature evolution trends over consecutive pulses, while enabling film resistivity within 4–5 times that of bulk silver in 2.5 seconds of processing time. Nanoscale electromagnetic models are used to understand optical absorption as a function of changing ratio of nanowires to nanoparticles in a model assembly that emulates the IPL experiments performed here. The coupling between densification and optical absorption is found to inherently depend on the nanomaterial shape distribution and the ability of this phenomenon to explain the experimental temperature evolution trends is discussed. The implications of these observations for controlling self-damping coupling in IPL and the optimum nanoparticle to nanowire ratios for concurrently achieving high throughput, low processing temperatures, low material costs and low resistivity in IPL of conductive metallic nanomaterials are also described.
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The Coupling Between Densification and Optical Heating in Intense Pulsed Light Sintering of Silver Nanoparticles
Sintering of nanoparticles deposited onto rigid or flexible substrate is required for many devices that use continuous and patterned thin films. An emerging need in this area is to perform nanoparticle sintering under ambient conditions, at high speeds, and with throughput that is compatible with high speed nanoparticle deposition techniques. Intense Pulsed Light sintering (IPL) uses a high energy, broad area and broad spectrum beam of xenon lamp light to sinter metallic and non-metallic nanoparticles. The capability of IPL to meet the above needs has been demonstrated. This paper experimentally examines temperature evolution and densification during IPL. It is shown, for the first time, that temperature rise and densification in IPL are related to each other. A coupled optical-thermal-sintering model on the nanoscale is developed, to understand this phenomenon. This model is used to show that the change in nanoscale shape of the nanoparticle ensemble due to sintering, reduces the optically induced heating as the densification proceeds, which provides a better explanation of experimental observations as compared to current models of IPL. The implications of this new understanding on the performance of IPL are also discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1449383
- PAR ID:
- 10063322
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASME 2016 11th International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- V001T02A082
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1115/MSEC2016-8693
