Tengyuan Zhang
Western University, Canada
Title: Facile fabrication of hybrid copper-fiber conductive features with enhanced durability and ultra-low sheet resistance for low-cost high-performance paper-based electronics
Biography
Biography: Tengyuan Zhang
Abstract
The accelerating arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT) era creates huge demand for low-cost, high-performance paper electronics. However, fabricating highly conductive circuit on low-cost cellulose paper is challenging due to its high roughness and resolution loss caused by capillary effect.
To address these challenges, we propose a scalable, cost-effective method to fabricate high-performance electronics on regular cellulose paper. Taking advantage of the unique porous structure of cellulose paper, we activate the three-dimensional electroless deposition of copper for fast generation of the hybrid copper-fiber highly conductive structure. Currently, the sheet resistance of most PE product is 50 mΩ/sq. With the technology mentioned above, 5 mΩ/sq (10 times better) can be easily achieved with low cost and high resolution (100 microns feature size). Thanks to its unique copper-fiber hybrid structure, both the physical and electrical properties are greatly enhanced for wider variety of applications. To demonstrate its promising application, a functional battery-free energy harvesting device and a high-performance planar antenna for RFID were fabricated and tested using the proposed method.
