From Molecules to Materials: Designer Precursors for the Inkjet Printing of Conductive Metal
With the market for inorganic electronics predicted to reach $45 billion by 2028, advances in the manufacture of large scale flexible electronics has resulted in the efficient, environmentally friendly roll to roll process, employing inkjet printing. This leap in technology has come hand-in-hand with the requirement for precursors that will decompose cleanly, at low temperature and high speed. The Knapp group are working to create ‘metal inks’ that can be printed in air, then treated at temperatures below 200 °C, to give conductive metallic features.

Recent work has highlighted that the careful selection of ligands can aid reduction of the metal complexes to leave conductive metals (e.g. Cu, Ag, Al). Facile formulation of these compounds into inks allows for inkjet printing and subsequent low temperature reduction (via thermal sintering) yielding highly conductive features which can be incorporated into electronic devices.

Here we discuss the chemistry of precursor development and report our work on printed metal tracks. Using careful ligand design we can attune the properties of the resultant precursor at the molecular level, making precursor functionality fully adjustable. We describe the synthesis, characterisation and printing of a library of novel compounds; selected to produce various deposits fulfilling the required specification – with particular focus on sintering methods, including thermal and plasma enhanced.

Biography:
Caroline Knapp was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022, in the Inorganic and Materials section at UCL Chemistry. She gained her MSci (2006) and then PhD (2010) from UCL in the field of precursor design and analysis for aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition.

Following this she worked on low valent group 14 chemistry at UC Davis, CA, with Professor Phil P. Power FRS. She returned to the UK, firstly with a postdoc at Imperial College before being awarded a Ramsay Memorial Fellowship in 2015, joining the team as a lecturer in 2017. Aside from teaching her research group now carries out investigations isolating highly air and moisture sensitive precursors for the printing of electronic devices, amongst other exciting projects. knappresearchgroup.wixsite.com/knappresearchgroup

Refreshments will be available from 3:30pm in the Hume-Rothery Meeting Room
Date: 6 February 2025, 16:00
Venue: Hume-Rothery Building, Parks Road OX1 3PH
Venue Details: Hume-Rothery Lecture Theatre
Speaker: Professor Caroline Knapp (University College London)
Organising department: Department of Materials
Organiser: Lorraine Laird (Department of Materials)
Organiser contact email address: communications@materials.ox.ac.uk
Host: Dr Camilla Di Mino (University of Oxford, Department of Materials)
Part of: Materials Departmental Colloquia
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Lorraine Laird