Nanotechnology-based nanoinks are emerging as suitable inks for cost-sensitive electronic applications. These inks offer a new means for depositing droplets of ink onto the surface of several materials that include dielectrics, organic semiconductors, and paper. The new copper nanoinks have better potential for such applications, as they are deposited with an inkjet printer through an additive process without requiring any photopatterning or etching steps. These inks are also applied at room temperature under atmospheric conditions. The key advantage associated with copper nanoinks is the fact there is a quantum confinement effect when the particles are kept below 100 nanometers in size, while another advantage is that the melting point of copper is significantly high. The new copper inks dry at temperatures of up to 100°C and the photosintering process that uses UV radiation to reduce copper oxides to metallic copper is carried out at room temperature.
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