Abstract
Conductive copper paste is a promising material for use in electronic devices, replacing silver or other metal pastes, because of its high conductivity, low electro-migration, and cost. However, the high sintering temperature and the need of an inert sintering atmosphere limit the commercial application of copper paste. In this study, a copper thick film paste for use on alumina was developed using a mixture of copper nanoparticles (50 nm in size) and microparticles (1 μm in size). With this paste, the sintering temperature was as low as 500 °C when the pressure was at ambient pressure. It was found that the bimodal copper film offered the best volume resistivity of 6.26 × 10−8 Ω·m at a weight ratio of micro- to nanoparticles of 2:1. Glass frits were used as an additive to improve the adhesion strength between the copper film and the alumina substrate with minimal change in electrical performance.
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This work was supported by the Research Grants Council (Grant No. 16205717).
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Tang, J., Mak, C.H.H., Tam, S.K. et al. Formulation of a paste for copper thick film. J Nanopart Res 23, 166 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-021-05300-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-021-05300-7