Abstract
In contact transfer printing, perfect ink transfer is determined by the difference of the surface energies between before and after a transfer step. To characterize the difference, one may record the adhesion force by separating the ink film from a substrate by an external force. Ink-blanket adhesion is one of the key properties to determine the printability because it affects all steps of the contact transfer printing. Only a certain range of ink-blanket adhesion properties can get a perfect transfer. Using a lab-made high-precision force measuring device, we developed a method to measure the adhesion force during detaching an ink film from a blanket. Ink-blanket adhesion can be evaluated quantitatively either as adhesion strength or adhesion energy from the measured adhesion force. Using the proposed method, we assessed the adhesion properties of commercial Ag nanoparticle ink varying the film thickness and the solid contents.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- F p :
-
Maximum adhesion force
- A c :
-
Transferred area of ink film
- W a :
-
Work of adhesion
- S a :
-
Adhesion strength
- E a :
-
Adhesion energy
- Std. dev.:
-
Standard deviation
References
Jo, J., Yu, J. S., Lee, T. M., and Kim, D. S., “Fabrication of Printed Organic Thin-Film Transistors using Roll Printing,” Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 48, No. 4S, pp. 04C181, 2009.
Yu, J. S., Kim, I., Kim, J. S., Jo, J., Larsen-Olsen, T. T., et al., “Silver Front Electrode Grids for Ito-Free all Printed Polymer Solar Cells with Embedded and Raised Topographies, Prepared by Thermal Imprint, Flexographic and Inkjet Roll-to-Roll Processes,” Nanoscale, Vol. 4, No. 19, pp. 6032–6040, 2012.
Lee, T. M., Han, H. S., Kim, B., Kwak, S. W., Noh, J. H., and Kim, I., “Roll Offset Printing Process based on Interface Separation for Fine and Smooth Patterning,” Thin Solid Films, Vol. 548, pp. 566–571, 2013.
Xia, Y. and Whitesides, G. M., “Extending Microcontact Printing as a Microlithographic Technique,” Langmuir, Vol. 13, No. 7, pp. 2059–2067, 1997.
Chang, Y. G., Nam, S. H., Kim, N. K., Kook, Y. H., Kim, J., et al., “A Study of RollPrinting Technology for TFT-LCD Fabrication,” Journal of the Society for Information Display, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 301–307, 2009.
Tanaka, M., Mabuchi, Y., Hayashi, T., and Hara, M., “Subtractive Offset Printing for Fabrication of Sub Micrometer Scale Electrodes with Gold Nanoparticles,” Microelectronic Engineering, Vol. 95, pp. 14–20, 2012.
Nam, K. S., Yoon, S. M, Lee, S.-H., Kim, D. S., and Kim, C. H., “Effect of Properties of Conductive Ink on Printability of Electrode Patterning by Gravure Printing Method” J. Korean. Soc. Precis. Eng., Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 573–577, 2013.
Hrehorova, E., Pekarovicova, A., and Fleming, P. D., “Gravure Printability of Conducting Polymer Inks,” Proc. of NIP & Digital Fabrication Conference, Vol. 2006, No. 3, pp. 107–110, 2006.
Choi, N., Wee, H., Nam, S., Lavelle, J., and Hatalis, M., “A Modified Offset Roll Printing for Thin Film Transistor Applications,” Microelectronic Engineering, Vol. 91, pp. 93–97, 2012.
Hwang, J. H., Mendoza, K., Jang, K., Kim, N., and Hwang, S., “Optimization of Reverse Offset Roll to Plate (RO-R2P) Through Contact Angle,” Journal of Control and Systems Engineer Dec, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 67–72, 2013.
Chibowski, E., Hołysz, L., Kip, G., Van Silfhout, A., and Busscher, H., “Surface Free Energy Components of Glass from Ellipsometry and Zeta Potential Measurements,” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Vol. 132, No. 1, pp. 54–61, 1989.
Dataphysics Instruments GmbH, “Solid Surface Energy Data (SFE) for Common Polymers,” http://www.surface-tension.de/solid-surfaceenergy.htm (Accessed 4 DEC 2014)
Jiang, D., Feng, X., Qu, B., Wang, Y., and Fang, D., “Rate-Dependent Interaction between Thin Films and Interfaces during Micro/Nanoscale Transfer Printing,” Soft Matter, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 418–423, 2012.
Dupont, S. R., Voroshazi, E., Heremans, P., and Dauskardt, R. H., “Adhesion Properties of Inverted Polymer Solarcells: Processing and Film Structure Parameters,” Organic Electronics, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1262–1270, 2013.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, AR., Kim, I., Kim, KY. et al. Quantitative measurement of ink-blanket adhesion for contact transfer printing inks. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 16, 151–156 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-015-0019-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-015-0019-z