The effect of bending loading conditions on the reliability of inkjet printed and evaporated silver metallization on polymer substrates

•New high-throughput cyclic bending test technique is presented.•Tensile, compressive and mixed cyclic bending tests are performed.•Differences in crack density for inkjet printed and evaporated silver are analyzed.•The mechanisms of mechanical failure in printed and evaporated lines are elucidated.

Systematic investigation of the effect of tensile and compressive cyclic bending strains on the mechanical reliability of inkjet printed and evaporated conductive silver lines on polyethylene naphthalate substrates is presented. With the help of a new bending test apparatus it is shown that cyclic tensile, compressive, and mixed tensile-compressive bending strains result in different amounts of induced mechanical damage in printed silver lines. In contrast, evaporated silver lines with the same geometry show no dependence on the type of strain. A detailed comparison of the fracture mechanisms in printed and evaporated silver is given using scanning electron microscopy and focused ion beam analysis.

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