Sintering of conductive inks on plastic substrates by use of microwave furnaces being suitable for largescale production processes

This work is about the application of large-scale microwave furnaces being suitable for the sintering of conductive structures deposited on standard plastic parts in industrial processes. The conductive structures are consisting of carbon or silver filled conductive inks. The feasibility of microwave sintering is proved by comparing the specific resistance of structures subjected to microwave sintering with conductive paths on reference samples sintered in a convection furnace. Furthermore, optical microscopy has been employed to inspect the surface morphology of conductive paths sintered by both microwave furnace and convection furnace. It turns out that appropriate microwave sintering depends on the specific way the magnetron power is controlled in the furnace and on the temporal evolution of magnetron power during the sintering process.