Micro-scale aerosol-jet printing of graphene interconnects

This article addresses the deployment and characterization of a micro-scale aerosol-jet additive manufacturing technology to print graphene interconnects. A highly concentrated graphene ink with viscosity of 21 cP and 3.1 mg/ml graphene flakes with the lateral size below 200 nm was developed and adopted for this process to make a reliable and repeatable graphene deposition on the treated Si/SiO2 wafers. To this end, the influence of the most significant process parameters, including the atomizer power, the atomizer flow rate, and the number of the printed layers, on the size and properties of graphene interconnects was studied. Results show that the aerosol-jet printing process is capable of printing micro-scale graphene interconnects with variable widths in the range of 10-90 μm. These patterns, as the finest printed graphene patterns, with resistivity as low as 0.018 Ω cm and sheet resistance of 1.64 kΩ/□ may ease the development of miniaturized printed electronic applications of graphene.