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Formation of closely packed Cu nanoparticle films by capillary immersion force for preparing low-resistivity Cu films at low temperature

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Abstract

Films made of closely packed Cu nanoparticles (NPs) were obtained by drop casting Cu NP inks. The capillary immersion force exerted during the drying of the inks caused the Cu NPs to attract each other, resulting in closely packed Cu NP films. The apparent density of the films was found to depend on the type of solvent in the ink because the capillary immersion force is affected by the solvent surface tension and dispersibility of Cu NPs in the solvent. The closely packed particulate structure facilitated the sintering of Cu NPs even at low temperature, leading to low-resistivity Cu films. The sintering was also enhanced with a decrease in the size of NPs used. We demonstrated that a closely packed particulate structure using Cu NPs with a mean diameter 61.7 nm showed lower resistivity (7.6 μΩ cm) than a traditionally made Cu NP film (162 μΩ cm) after heat treatment.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) 15K16155.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, 6-6-20, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan

    Shun Yokoyama, Kenichi Motomiya, Hideyuki Takahashi & Kazuyuki Tohji

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  1. Shun Yokoyama
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  2. Kenichi Motomiya
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  3. Hideyuki Takahashi
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  4. Kazuyuki Tohji
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Correspondence to Shun Yokoyama.

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Yokoyama, S., Motomiya, K., Takahashi, H. et al. Formation of closely packed Cu nanoparticle films by capillary immersion force for preparing low-resistivity Cu films at low temperature. J Nanopart Res 18, 326 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-016-3648-y

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