Quanyi Mu, Deke Yan Deke Yan, Xin Li
Abstract Intense pulsed light (IPL) sintering technology has been widely used in printed electronics, solar cell manufacturing, device fabrication, and other fields. Since improper pulsed light settings may cause failures and thereby affect the performance and repeatability of the final product, optimizing the pulsed light setting is essential. However, the current optimization of IPL sintering conditions mainly focuses on the temperature of nanoparticle (NP) inks, neglecting the impact of the underlying substrate, which can significantly affect IPL sintering conditions. Here, we investigated the effects of three critical substrate parameters, i.e. absorbance, thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), on the evolution of temperature, thermal stress and thermal strain of the sintered films/substrates, and analyzed possible failure phenomena and their mechanisms. We found that when the substrate has a higher absorbance or lower thermal conductivity, there is a risk of substrate burning due to heat accumulation; when the substrate has a higher CTE, there is a risk of NP film warping or delamination due to greater thermal stress/strain. Therefore, substrates with high absorbance, low thermal conductivity, and high CTE are prone to induce failures during IPL sintering, and it is recommended to adopt mild sintering conditions with low power and longer duration, such as multi-cycle and multi-pulse IPL sintering methods; conversely, severe sintering condition like single-pulse IPL sintering method can be chosen to save time and energy. This study provides guidelines for selecting pulsed light settings based on different substrate parameters, in order to avoid failures while saving time and energy.