We have used the capillary suspension phenomenon to design conductive pastes for printed electronic applications, such as front side metallization of solar cells, without non-volatile, organic additives that often deteriorate electrical properties. Adding a small amount of a second, immiscible fluid to a suspension creates a network of liquid bridges between the particles. This capillary force-controlled microstructure allows for tuning the flow behavior in a wide range. Yield stress and low-shear viscosity can be adjusted such that long-term stability is provided by inhibiting sedimentation, and, even more importantly, narrow line widths and high aspect ratios are accessible. These ternary mixtures, called capillary suspensions, exhibit a strong degree of shear thinning that allows for conventional coating or printing equipment to be used. Finally, the secondary fluid, beneficial for stability and processing of the wet paste, completely evaporates during drying and sintering. Thus, we obtained high purity silver and nickel layers with a conductivity two times greater than could be obtained with state-of-the-art, commercial materials. This revolutionary concept can be easily applied to other systems using inorganic or even organic conductive particles and represents a fundamental paradigm change to the formulation of pastes for printed electronics.
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