Fabrication
of Elemental Copper by Intense Pulsed
Light Processing of a Copper Nitrate Hydroxide Ink
- Publication date
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Abstract
Printed electronics and renewable
energy technologies have shown
a growing demand for scalable copper and copper precursor inks. An
alternative copper precursor ink of copper nitrate hydroxide, Cu<sub>2</sub>(OH)<sub>3</sub>NO<sub>3</sub>, was aqueously synthesized
under ambient conditions with copper nitrate and potassium hydroxide
reagents. Films were deposited by screen-printing and subsequently
processed with intense pulsed light. The Cu<sub>2</sub>(OH)<sub>3</sub>NO<sub>3</sub> quickly transformed in less than 100 s using 40 (2
ms, 12.8 J cm<sup>–2</sup>) pulses into CuO. At higher energy
densities, the sintering improved the bulk film quality. The direct
formation of Cu from the Cu<sub>2</sub>(OH)<sub>3</sub>NO<sub>3</sub> requires a reducing agent; therefore, fructose and glucose were
added to the inks. Rather than oxidizing, the thermal decomposition
of the sugars led to a reducing environment and direct conversion
of the films into elemental copper. The chemical and physical transformations
were studied with XRD, SEM, FTIR and UV–vis
