Xaar and Lawter, along with its parent company Harima Chemicals Group (HCG) announce a collaboration to optimise the performance of a line of nanosilver conductive inks in the Xaar 1002 industrial inkjet printhead

The combined solution will be of particular interest to manufacturers of consumer electronics goods looking for a robust and reliable method for printing antennas and sensors with silver nanoparticle ink as part of their manufacturing processes.
 
Industrial inkjet offers significant advantages over traditional print technologies to manufacturers of consumer electronics products. Inkjet is a cleaner process than other methods of printing silver inks; this is especially relevant when printing onto a substrate, such as a display, in which any yield loss is very expensive. With inkjet, manufacturers can very precisely control the amount of ink dispensed in certain areas of a pattern so that the ink or fluid deposited can be thicker in some areas and thinner in others. Similarly, inkjet enables the deposition of a much thinner layer of fluids than traditional methods, which is significant for the manufacturers looking to produce thinner devices. In addition, inkjet is one of the few technologies able to print a circuit over a substrate that has a structured surface.
 
Dr Arturo Horta Ph.D., Business Development Manager for Lawter Innovation Group, says: 
 
“This is an excellent opportunity to showcase our latest technological breakthroughs and demonstrate the unique value that our revolutionary nanoparticle inkjet solutions can play as part of an integrated system solutions in the PE world,” 
 
“The applications that will benefit from the combination of Lawter’s nanosilver conductive inks and Xaar’s 1002 printhead are exciting,” says Keith Smith, Director of Advanced Manufacturing at Xaar. “We are seeing more and more that the consumer electronics market is looking for a printing solution that provides the quality of the Lawter ink and production reliability of the Xaar GS6 1002 to allow designers to make thinner devices. The printhead and ink combination, along with photonic sintering, is unlocking mechanical and electrical designs never thought possible before.”