Drawing Circuits in Conductive Ink. Silver pen has the write stuff for flexible electronics. 6/28/2011 | Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor | 217-244-1073; eahlberg@illinois.edu CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The pen may have bested the sword long ago, but now it’s challenging wires and soldering irons. University of Illinois engineers developed a pen with conductive silver ink that can write electric circuits and interconnects directly on paper and other surfaces. | Photo by Bok Yeop Ahn University of Illinois engineers have developed a silver-inked rollerball pen capable of writing electrical circuits and interconnects on paper, wood and other surfaces. The pen is writing whole new chapters in low-cost, flexible and disposable electronics. Led by Jennifer Lewis, the Hans Thurnauer professor of materials science and engineering at the U. of I., and Jennifer Bernhard, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, the team published its work in the journal Advanced Materials.
While it looks like a typical silver-colored rollerball pen, this pen’s ink is a solution of real silver. Technology - Conductive Inkjet Technology. Welcome - Bare Conductive. Inkjet Printing as a Key Enabling Technology for Printed Electronics. Introduction In the past decade, the family of digital printing technologies has evolved from being just a tool to visualize information into a generator of functionalities. The phrase ′printing beyond color′ aptly sums up this transformation. While this family of printing technologies is still widely used to fulfill visual requirements, its development in the generation of functionality, especially in the field of printed electronics, has resulted in an explosion of new ideas and fabrication approaches leading to lean manufacturing.
The basic premise of digital printing, namely the positioning of a liquid (ink) droplet or solid (toner) particle of microscopic volume directly correlated with the presence of information at each pixel of the image or text to be produced, enables the economic deposition of expensive materials, functional or otherwise, only on desired locations on a substrate, that is, a selective deposition. back to top Background Conventional Printing Digital Printing.