Laser sintering of silver nano-particles inks printed on paper substrates

In this work we have investigated the use of laser sintering of different ink-jet printed nano-particle links (NPIs) on paper substrates. Laser sintering is shown to offer a fast and non-destructive way to produce paper based printed electronics. A continuous wave fiber laser source at 1064 nm is used and evaluated in combination with a galvo-scanning mirror system. A conductivity in order of 2.16 * 10 7 S/m is reached for the silver NPI structures corresponding to nearly 35 % conductivity compared to that of bulk silver and this is achieved without any observable damage to the paper substrate.