Inkjet printed and laser sintered Al:ZnO nanostructures for micropollutant detection
Résumé
Our studies are focused on the printing of aluminum doped ZnO (AZO) based ink by the inkjet technology (IJP). This technology includes some advantages like a single-step deposit of the functional material on flexible/ rigid substrates and it is a low-cost and contactless method. Here, the piezoelectric drop-on-demand nozzles were used to deposit a functional material from a suspension on a silicon or glass substrate. To prepare the ink, the AZO isotropic spherical nanoparticles and AZO nanoplatelets were firstly synthesized by aqueous coprecipitation. Then, the preparation of the AZO solvent-based inks was performed with the control of the viscosity, ink stability and nanoparticles dispersion. Once the AZO thin layer was deposited by IJP, the post-sintering of AZO films was conducted using a nanosecond pulsed Nd:YAG laser and KrF excimer laser. In this work, IJP has been carried out with the focus on studying the relationship between nanoparticle shapes and printing parameters. We also analyzed the drops spreading mechanisms as a function of nanoparticle shape. Then, the morphological properties were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Structural properties of the thin layers were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The sintered AZO layer will act as active layers in future optical sensor to detect micro-pollutants in liquid water such as glyphosate and AMPA.