スクリーンオフセット印刷を用いた高品質細線形成

抄録

Printing technology has attracted much attention because it can create a new paradigm in the field of electronics. Among the various printing methods, screen printing is widely used for forming the wires and⁄or electrodes of electronic devices such as solar cells, touch screen panels, and multilayer ceramic capacitors. However, mainly because of ink bleeding, patterns with widths smaller than 50 μm are difficult to form using the screen printing method, which limits the range of applications. To address this issue, a new printing method called screen-offset printing has been developed. In this method, ink is first screen-printed on a silicone-resin blanket with a flat surface. The ink is then transferred from the blanket to a substrate. Because the silicone resin absorbs the organic solvents in the ink, the viscosity of the ink pattern on the blanket increases. Therefore, fine patterns can be transcriptionally formed on the substrate without ink bleeding, and the line width reaches 20 mm. In addition, the ink pattern has a rectangular cross section, which contributes toward making wires and electrodes highly reliable. In the present paper, this printing method is detailed, and its impact is elucidated by comparing the experimental results obtained by conventional screen printing and the developed screen-offset printing.