Conductive compositions comprising metal carboxylates

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10160869-B2
Application number	US-201615345338-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 7, 2016
Priority date	Nov 13, 2013
Publication date	Dec 25, 2018
Grant date	Dec 25, 2018

Abstract

A conductive composition that comprises a branched metal carboxylate and one or more solvents. The solvents may be an aromatic hydrocarbon solvent. In embodiments, the branched metal carboxylate is a silver carboxylate. The conductive composition may be used in forming conductive features on a substrate, including by inkjet printing, screen printing or offset printing.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A process for forming a conductive feature comprising:
providing a conductive composition comprising
a branched metal carboxylate present in an amount of from about 5 to about 7 percent by weight of the total weight of the conductive composition,
a first solvent being an aromatic hydrocarbon solvent in which the branched metal carboxylate is soluble, and
a second solvent in which the branched metal carboxylate is soluble, wherein a first composition at a near saturated concentration formed from the first solvent and the branched metal carboxylate has a low viscosity of from about 0.9 to about 10 cps at room temperature, and a second composition at a near saturated concentration formed from the second solvent and the branched metal carboxylate has a high viscosity of from about 80 cps to about 3000 cps at room temperature, wherein the viscosity of the conductive composition formed from the first and second composition is selected by controlling the amount of second solvent relative to the amount of first solvent;

liquid depositing the conductive composition onto a substrate; and
annealing the conductive composition to the substrate to form the conductive feature.

2. The process of claim 1 , wherein the liquid deposition is performed by a printing process selected from the group consisting of inkjet printing, aerosol jet printing, gravure printing, flexography printing, screen printing, offset printing, and mixtures thereof or by a non-printing process selected from the group consisting of spin coating, dip coating, bar coating, and mixtures thereof.

3. The process of claim 1 , wherein the viscosity of the conductive composition is selected from a range of from about 1 to about 3,000 cps at room temperature.

4. The process of claim 3 , wherein the viscosity of the conductive composition is selected from a range of from about 1 to about 2,000 cps at a temperature of from about 25 to about 95° C.

5. The process of claim 1 , wherein the weight ratio of the first solvent to the second solvent is in the range of from about 99:1 to about 1:99.

6. The process of claim 5 , wherein the weight ratio of the first solvent to the second solvent is in the range of from about 90:10 to about 10:90.

7. The process of claim 1 , wherein the conductive composition has a surface tension of from about 25 to about 40 mN/m.

8. The process of claim 1 , wherein the metal for the branched metal carboxylate is selected from the group consisting of silver, palladium, copper, gold, nickel, or mixtures thereof.

9. The process of claim 8 , wherein the branched silver carboxylate comprises 6 to 18 carbon atoms.

10. The process of claim 1 , wherein the aromatic hydrocarbon solvent is selected from the group consisting of toluene, xylene, trimethylbenzene, ethyl benzene, diethylbenzene, methylethylbenzene, tetrahydronaphthalene, methylnaphthalene, propylbenzene, butylbenzene, methyl propylbenzene, cumene and mixtures thereof.

11. The process of claim 1 , wherein the first and second solvents are present in a combined amount of from about 5 to about 80 percent by weight of the total weight of the conductive composition.

12. A process for forming a conductive feature comprising:
providing a conductive composition comprising
a branched metal carboxylate present in an amount of from about 20 to about 50 percent by weight of the total weight of the conductive composition,
a first solvent being an aromatic hydrocarbon solvent in which the branched metal carboxylate is soluble, and
a second solvent in which the branched metal carboxylate is soluble, wherein a first composition at a near saturated concentration formed from the first solvent and the branched metal carboxylate has a low viscosity of from about 0.9 cps to about 10 cps at room temperature, and a second composition at a near saturated concentration formed from the second solvent and the branched metal carboxylate has a high viscosity of from about 80 cps to about 3000 cps at room temperature, wherein the viscosity of the conductive composition formed from the first and second composition is selected by controlling the amount of second solvent relative to the amount of first solvent;

liquid depositing the conductive composition onto a substrate; and
annealing the conductive composition to the substrate to form the conductive feature at a lower sintering temperature and for a shorter period of time as required by a process using the same conductive composition without the branched metal carboxylate.

13. The process of claim 12 , wherein the sintering temperature is from about 100 to about 250° C.

14. The process of claim 13 , wherein the sintering temperature is from about 120 to about 200° C.

15. The process of claim 12 , wherein the annealing time for the conductive composition is from about 5 to about 60 minutes.

16. The process of claim 15 , wherein the annealing time for the conductive composition is from about 5 to about 30 minutes.

17. The process of claim 12 , wherein the conductive composition is annealed at a temperature of about 130° C. for about 10 minutes.

18. A process for forming a conductive composition comprising:
providing a branched metal carboxylate present in an amount of from about 20 to about 50 percent by weight of the total weight of the conductive composition;
providing a first solvent being an aromatic hydrocarbon solvent in which the branched metal carboxylate is soluble;
providing a second solvent in which the branched metal carboxylate is soluble, wherein a first composition at a near saturated concentration formed from the first solvent and the branched metal carboxylate has a low viscosity of from about 0.9 cps to about 10 cps at room temperature, and a second composition at a near saturated concentration formed from the second solvent and the branched metal carboxylate has a high viscosity of from about 80 cps to about 3000 cps at room temperature;
selecting an amount of second solvent relative to an amount of the first solvent to achieve a specific viscosity of the conductive composition;
combining the first composition and the second composition into a reaction mixture; and
forming the conductive composition, wherein the conductive composition is stable for over one month.

19. The process of claim 18 , wherein the conductive composition is stable for up to one month.

Assignees

• Xerox Corp

Inventors

• Wu Yiliang
• Liu Ping

Classifications

• C23C18/143

  Radiation by light, e.g. photolysis or pyrolysis · CPC title

• B41M5/007

  on glass, ceramic, tiles, concrete, stones, etc. · CPC title

• B41J2/04

  generating single droplets or particles on demand · CPC title

• B41M7/009

  using thermal means, e.g. infrared radiation, heat · CPC title

• C23C18/08

  characterised by the deposition of metallic material · CPC title