In recent years, highly conductive, printable electrodes have received tremendous attention in various research fields as the most important constituent components for large-area, low-cost electronics. In terms of an indispensable sintering process for generating electrodes from printable metallic nanomaterials, a flashlight-based sintering technique has been regarded as a viable approach for continuous roll-to-roll processes. In this paper, we report cost-effective, printable Cu electrodes that can be applied to vulnerable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates, by incorporating a heretofore-unrecognized ultrathin plasmonic thermal/optical barrier, which is composed of a 30 nm thick Ag nanoparticle (NP) layer. The different plasmonic behaviors during a flashlight-sintering process are investigated for both Ag and Cu NPs, based on a combined interpretation of the experimental results and theoretical calculations. It is demonstrated that by a continuous printing process and a continuous flashlight-sintering process, the Cu electrodes are formed successfully on large PET substrates, with a sheet resistance of 0.24 Ω/sq and a resistivity of 22.6 μΩ·cm.
Keywords: PET; copper; electrode; flash; plasmonic; sinter.