I would like to know the most effective way of metal deposition for organic electronic devices.
It depends. What is the application? Based on the mentioned metals I would guess electrodes for TFTs or sensors!?
What is the minimum or maximum structure size? Gravure and inkjet printing produce fine structures. But evaporation can produce smaller structures.
What’s the desired layer thickness? Screen printing produces very thick layers.
How homogenous should the metal be (surface roughness and waviness)? Here evaporation and sputtering will produce lower surface roughness. Best printing method should be gravure.
What is the substrates material and size? Printing on rigid substrates like glass or silicon is easier using inkjet or flexography.
What is the production volume? Here conventional methods like gravure, flexo or screen printing will be better than inkjet.
Is there already a layer beneath your metal layer? Printing in general needs solvents for inks, which can damage a sensitive layer.
If you have a 3D-substrate pad or inkjet printing would be best.
There is a wide range of Ag-based inks available. Au and Al are not that common.
For a start, these articles might help:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2008.10.004
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pssa.200824428
It depends much on what you need to do and on the exact materials used for your device.
However, if possible I would choose sputtering, since it allows to deposit a wide range of metal films, with thicknesses between a few nm up to several hundreds on nm.
Another technique you could check is evaporation, either plain vacuum evaporation (which works only with metals with low melting temperatures) or electron-assisted evaporation (EBPVD). The real advantage of evaporation is that it is performed in high vacuum and at relatively low substrate temperatures.
For metal thin films, thermal vapor evaporation is a good choice. Out of the options what you have mentioned sputtering is good option.
Try with e-beam evaporator if available.
Please, take a look at our recent papers:
T. Stefaniuk, P. Wróbel, E. Górecka, T. Szoplik, "Optimum temperature for deposition of ultrasmooth silver nanolayers," Nanoscale Research Letters 9, 153-161 (2014).
T. Stefaniuk, P. Wróbel, P. Trautman, T. Szoplik, Ultrasmooth metal nanolayers for plasmonic applications: surface roughness and specific resistivity. Applied Optics 53, B237-B241 (2014).
It depends. What is the application? Based on the mentioned metals I would guess electrodes for TFTs or sensors!?
What is the minimum or maximum structure size? Gravure and inkjet printing produce fine structures. But evaporation can produce smaller structures.
What’s the desired layer thickness? Screen printing produces very thick layers.
How homogenous should the metal be (surface roughness and waviness)? Here evaporation and sputtering will produce lower surface roughness. Best printing method should be gravure.
What is the substrates material and size? Printing on rigid substrates like glass or silicon is easier using inkjet or flexography.
What is the production volume? Here conventional methods like gravure, flexo or screen printing will be better than inkjet.
Is there already a layer beneath your metal layer? Printing in general needs solvents for inks, which can damage a sensitive layer.
If you have a 3D-substrate pad or inkjet printing would be best.
There is a wide range of Ag-based inks available. Au and Al are not that common.
For a start, these articles might help:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2008.10.004
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pssa.200824428
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