Lockwood Estrin, Francis; Hagger, Oliver SJ; Parkes, Michael A; Caruana, Daren J; (2025) Single-step atmospheric pressure plasma jet deposition of copper. Flexible and Printed Electronics , 10 (4) , Article 045004. 10.1088/2058-8585/ae0e81.

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Abstract

Additive manufacturing’s transformative potential in electronics hinges on the ability to precisely deposit copper onto diverse surfaces. Atmospheric pressure plasma jet deposition is a new approach, which allows the deposit of metallic copper onto a variety of surface using aqueous metal salt solutions-based precursors as ink. In this study, we compare the conductivity of copper tracks deposited using selection of copper salts. From detailed profiles and resistance measurements, the copper tracks from the chloride salt precursor, showed the highest conductivity, of 22% ± 7% of bulk. Tracks formed using copper nitrate salt, showed only 1%–5% of bulk conductivity, suggesting that the anion, despite having no obvious chemical role in the deposition process has a significant effect on the resulting metal print quality. Characterisation using XRD, XPS, SEM and Raman, showed that all salts used as precursors produced fully reduced copper metal tracks by the plasma at 12 W. However, SEM revealed that both copper chloride and copper sulphate precursors lead to a high-density tracks, whereas copper salts of nitrate, acetate and formate lead to low density tracks. Furthermore, SEMs taken at short deposition times show the mechanism for the track deposition may explain the reason for the differences in conductivity.

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