Glass frit content—Property co-relation in thick films of photoimageable silver conductor paste

As a part of systematic study in Photoimageable Conductor Paste, we proposed to investigate the effect of inorganic binders (fritted, fritless) and mixed bonded (mixture of frit and oxides) on the microstructure, adhesion, sheet resistivity, shrinkage and line/space resolution. To start with, a preliminary account of preparation and allied characterization of photoimageable conductor paste as a function of weight percentage of glass binder is furnished in this communication. This photoimageable paste comprised of submicron sized silver powder, micron sized lead borosilicate glass frit, epoxy acrylate resin with pendant –COOH group and 2,2′-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone. We have adopted physicochemical techniques such as TGA/DTA, SEM/EDAX and sheet resistance measurement to arrive at optimized weight percentage of glass yielding the desired line/space resolution, minimal line shrinkage, better adherence and expected sheet resistance. We have varied the weight percentage of lead borosilicate glass frit from 0% to 10% maintaining the inorganic to organic ratio of 72:28 while formulating the paste.