Direct fabrication of micron-thickness pva-cnt patterned films by integrating micro-pen writing of pva films and drop-on-demand printing of cnt micropatterns

Abstract

The direct fabrication of micron-thickness patterned electronics consisting of patterned PVA films and CNT micropatterns still faces considerable challenges. Here, we demonstrated the integrated fabrication of PVA films of micron-thickness and CNT-based patterns by utilising micro-pen writing and drop-on-demand printing in sequence. Patterned PVA films of 1–5 µm in thickness were written first using proper micro-pen writing parameters, including the writing gap, the substrate moving velocity, and the working pressure. Then, CNT droplets were printed on PVA films that were cured at 55–65◦C for 3–15 min, resulting in neat CNT patterns. In addition, an inertia-pseudopartial wetting spreading model was established to release the dynamics of the droplet spreading process over thin viscoelastic films. Uniform and dense CNT lines with a porosity of 2.2% were printed on PVA substrates that were preprocessed at 55◦C for 9 min using a staggered overwriting method with the proper number of layers. Finally, we demonstrated the feasibility of this hybrid printing method by printing a patterned PVA-CNT film and a micro-ribbon. This study provides a valid method for directly fabricating micron-thickness PVA-CNT electronics. The proposed method can also provide guidance on the direct writing of other high-molecular polymer materials and printing inks of other nanosuspensions.