Graphene-Based Conducting Inks for Direct Inkjet Printing of Flexible Conductive Patterns and Their Applications in Electric Circuits and Chemical Sensors

A series of inkjet printing processes have been studied using graphene-based inks. Under optimized conditions, using water-soluble single-layered graphene oxide （GO） and few-layered graphene oxide （FGO）, various high image quality patterns could be printed on diverse flexible substrates, including paper, poly（ethylene terephthalate） （PET） and polyimide （PI）, with a simple and low-cost inkjet printing technique. The graphene-based patterns printed on plastic substrates demonstrated a high electrical conductivity after thermal reduction, and more importantly, they retained the same conductivity over severe bending cycles. Accordingly, flexible electric circuits and a hydrogen peroxide chemical sensor were fabricated and showed excellent performances, demonstrating the applications of this simple and practical inkjet printing technique using graphene inks. The results show that graphene materials--which can be easily produced on a large scale and possess outstanding electronic properties--have great potential for the convenient fabrication of flexible and low-cost graphene- based electronic devices, by using a simple inkjet printing technique.

A flexible ultra-broadband metamaterial absorber working on whole K-bands with polarization-insensitive and wide-angle stability

For potential military applications, a flexible metamaterial absorber(MMA) working on whole K-bands with totalthickness of 3.367 mm, ultra-broadband, polarization-insensitive, and wide-angle stability is presented based on frequencyselective surface(FSS). The absorber is composed of polyvinyl chloride(PVC) layer, polyimide(PI) layer, and poly tetra fluoro ethylene(PTFE) layer, with a sandwich structure of PVC–PI–PTFE–metal plate. Periodic conductive patterns play a crucial role in the absorber, and in traditional, it is designed on the upper surface of PI layer to form LC resonance. Different from commonly absorber, all the patterns are located on the lower surface of the PI layer in this work, and hence the impedance matching and absorptivity are improved in this purposed absorber. The flexible absorber with patterns on lower surface of the PI layer is compared with that on upper surface of the PI layer, the difference and the reasons are explained by absorption mechanism based on equivalent circuit model, and surface current density and electric field distribution are used to analyze resonance peaks. Absorptivity is greater than 90% in a frequency range of 10.47 GHz–45.44 GHz with relative bandwidth of 125.1%, covering the whole Ku, K, Ka, and some of X, U bands, especially containing the whole K bands from 12 GHz to 40 GHz. Radar cross section(RCS) is reduced at least 10 dB in 11.48 GHz–43.87 GHz frequency ranges,and absorption remained about 90% when the incident angle changed from 0°to 55°. The purposed absorber is fabricated,measured, and experiment results show good agreement with theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. After bonded on outer surface of different cylinders with diameters of 200 mm and 100 mm, the absorption of MMA is approximately reduced 10% and 20% respectively, which shows good conformal character with surface of various curvatures. Due to the attractive performance on strong absorption in the whole K-bands, flexible and easy conformal, our design exhibits broad potential application in radar stealth and sensors.

Pulsed electrohydrodynamic printing of conductive silver patterns on demand

Pulsed electrohydrodynamic printing （EHDP） is used to fabricate conductive silver patterns with micrometer resolution. The silver ink pendant experiences swelling, pulsation, and ejection under an applied pulse voltage of 20 Hz. The droplet deposi- tion frequency is equal to the applied voltage frequency so that the EHDP can deposit silver ink on demand. A low applied voltage favors uniform and non-scattering silver patterns while a high applied voltage results in ink scattering. Discrete drop- lets with 45-55 gm in diameter and continuous tracks with 60 gm in width are generated by using a ll0-i.tm-cailber nozzle. The feature size of deposited patterns is about half of the nozzle caliber, and a finer resolution can be achieved with the intro- duction of smaller nozzle calibers. Furthermore, the appropriate curing condition is investigated for sufficient combustion of ink solvent. The minimum resistivity of 3.3 gf~ cm is demonstrated for a continuous track cured at 200~C for 10 min. Eventu- ally, several passive electrical components, such as coated resistors, interdigitated capacitors （6 pF）, and spiral inductors （0.6 gH）, are successfully fabricated.