Polymer grafting by inkjet printing: a direct chemical writing toolset

Abstract : Among all the patterning techniques, inkjet printing has lately become a reliable technique at micrometer scale to produce localized modifi cations on material surfaces. Printing of polymer on material surface however leads to adsorbed patterns with poor adhesion. To overcome this drawback, a new process combining for the fi rst time inkjet printing and an effi cient covalent polymer grafting method was developed. This latter method is based on a photoassisted reduction of aryldiazonium salt/acrylate monomer ink, derived from the already published GraftFast process. In order to demonstrate its versatility, this new localized polymer grafting process is here combined as an example with the ligand induced electroless plating (LIEP) process to obtain metal interconnects onto fl exible and transparent substrates with excellent mechanical and electrical properties for applications in fl exible electronics devices.