Fabricating Highly Conductive and Flexible Copper Thin Films by Printed Polydopamine Patterns

In this thesis, we present a simple fabrication method to quickly create copper thin film patterns from a polydopamine-based primer ink. Polydopamine (PDA) inks were prepared by autopolymerization of dopamine to obtain polymer particle suspensions. After addition of silver nitrate, silver was recovered on the surface of PDA nanoparticles. The silver-doped PDA (Ag-PDA) suspension was inkjet-printed to form various patterns, which showed great adhesion on various plastic surfaces. After immersing the printed Ag-PDA patterns in an electroless metallization bath, highly conductive copper thin films were recovered with a resistivity of 2.5×10-6 Ω·cm. Bending tests showed that the resistance of plated copper thin films only increase slightly after being bent repeatedly for more than 10000 cycles. Patterns of copper thin films were also fabricated to demonstrate the possibility of applying this technique for printed electronics devices.