Optimizing the Electrical Conductivity of Screen Printed Silver Conductive Tracks by Post Treatment

Screen printed silver conductive tracks have been used or are being explored for applications in membrane switches, solar cells, radio frequency identification (RFID) antennas, diabetic testing strips, sensors etc. For many of these applications, optimizing the electric conductivity of the printed tracks is crucial. It has been noticed that the electric conductivity of the printed conductive tracks are highly dependent on the post-processing conditions. However, the understanding of the effect is limited. In this paper, preliminary study results show that ambient temperature drying followed by heat treatment offers the lowest resistance (highest conductance) for printed conductive tracks.