Conference Speakers List 2012
Alexandra Lyashenko
Research Assistent
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
Presentation — Poster Session
Wednesday — June 20, 2012 | Time: 06:00 pm
“Contacting methods for functional printing”
Electrical interfaces and contacts are important features of printed electronic devices. In numerous applications, interconnections between the printed part of an electronic circuit and the conventional electronic devices are still required.Classically, such contacts are achieved by soldering. However, this method has specific properties which are difficult to integrate in a printed electronics production process. This applies to newly develop printed strain gauge sensors in particular. Not all printed elements can be mechanically and electrically connected due to the very thin conductive layers, which are typical for printed electronics circuits and mostly incompatible with the properties of molten soldering alloy. This fact causes that the other improvement potentials by the printed strain gauge are not applicable.
To simplify the integration of printed electronics, we investigated a possible method for contacting thin functional layers. For this purpose, contact pads of pure copper foil were hot stamped and then overprinted. Since the contact pads are made of pure copper, a contact can be soldered on them in a further step, without attacking or destroying the functional layers. To test the functionality of components approached with such a method after overprinting, optical and electrical measurements were carried out after the production.
