Aerosol-Jet printing of highly flexible and conductive graphene/silver patterns

• A graphene/silver nanoparticle ink is developed and deployed in an aerosol-jet printing system.
• Graphene/Ag patterns, with low resistivity and high flexibility, are printed.
• Graphene/Ag aerosol-jet printed patterns are a more efficient candidate compared to either graphene or Ag NP printed patterns for flexible electronics.

This article addresses the development of a graphene/silver nanoparticle (Ag NP) ink and its deployment in an aerosol-jet additive manufacturing system in order to print highly conductive and flexible graphene/Ag patterns for flexible printed electronics. Printing with graphene/Ag NP ink produced a uniform microstructure and crack-free printed patterns. With a mean resistivity of 1.07×10−41.07×10−4 Ω cm, these graphene/Ag NP patterns have about 100 times less resistivity compared to graphene patterns and three times less resistivity than Ag NP patterns, made with the same printing system. With their low degree of resistivity and the same flexibility as the graphene printed patterns, resulted from the bending test, graphene/Ag aerosol-jet printed patterns may therefore be considered as an efficient candidate compared to either graphene or Ag NP printed patterns for flexible electronics.