Precision Gravure Printing of Conductive Ink on Flexible Substrate for Printed Electronics

In attempt to lower the production cost, roll-to-roll printing is gaining attention in electronics industries. Gravure printing, which has been the method of choice in the graphics industry for years thanks to its high resolution and process speed, is utilized to print conductive lines on flexible substrate. The main benefactors of such utilization are touch screen panel, RFID tags, thin film photovoltaics, and printed circuit board industries. The preferred substrate for conductive line printing is polymer. Due to its highly flexible nature, the printed electronics is highly flexible and is expected to create new markets where the rigid silicon and glass based electronics could not. In this work, the effect of gravure cell and trench on printing thin conductive lines as low as 20 μm line width on the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate is presented. Various printing orientations including the machine direction, the cross direction, and the 45° grid mesh are used and the respective orientation’s printability is discussed.