Fabien Mesnilgrente

Tunability of Carbon NanoTubes Resistance Deposited by Inkjet Printing at Low Temperature

A deposition method based on inkjet printing technology and conductive double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWNT) suspension is, hereby, presented. The approach exploits the selective transfer capabilities offered by the inkjet printing process and the excellent conductive characteristics of the available DWNTs, in order to realize microelectronic interconnects of arbitrary patter and given electrical properties. The DWNTs are prepared by CCVD process, oxidized and dispersed in ethylene-glycol (EG) and in water solution. The DWNTs lines are fabricated on tests structures and then characterized through impedance and current-voltage measurements. 400 μm long and 90 μm wide transmission lines have been printed by varying the number of overwrites for given DWNT density. The results confirm that the DC resistance of DWNTs lines can be changed according to the number of overwrites and that the lines preserve ohmic characteristics up to 100 MHz.

Manufacturability of gas sensor with ZnO nanoparticles suspension deposited by ink jet printing

Zinc oxide is used in many applications thanks to its various characteristics as well as photoresistivity, piezoelectricity, wide band gap for power components but also its capability for gas detection. In this article, we first present new process based on ZnO nanoparticles from Sigma Aldrich manufacturer; a stable ink obtained by mixing 10% weight of commercial powder with ethylene glycol, has been deposited by ink-jet printing on a silicon oxide substrate covered by platinum interdigitated electrodes. To obtain homogeneous deposits of nanoparticles, the working area of the sensor was bounded by functionalisation by the n-Octadecyltrichlorosilane. These deposits were optimized at 65°C. Then, the study was focused on the correlation between parameters of deposit and global resistance and gas sensitivity: conductivity for different operating temperatures under methane and isopropyl alcohol vapours. The best results have been obtained for thicknesses in the range of 0.5 and 2.5 μm. The ZnO resistance is stable under gas from 200°C and the relative sensitivity to methane and isopropyl alcohol are maximum and opposite at 225°C and 300°C respectively. This work shows that ink-jet is a promising technique to manufacture a new generation of low cost gas sensors at lower temperature deposition.