Molecular dynamics simulation of electrical resistivity in sintering process of nanoparticle silver inks

A molecular dynamics (MD) model is developed to simulate low temperature sintering of silver nanoparticles and resultant resistivity. Due to the high surface to volume ratio, nanoparticle silver inks can sinter at low thermal curing temperatures, which are used in intense pulsed light (IPL) sintering process. In this study, the configurational change of nanoparticle silver during sintering is studied using the MD model. Then the resultant electric resistivity is calculated using the Reimann-Weber formula. The simulation results show that the resistivity decreases rapidly in the initial sintering stage, due to the fast neck formation and growth. Additionally, the predicted temperature-dependent resistivity evolutions are in good agreement with both experimental measurements and analytical sintering model, indicating that the resistivity decreases with increasing sintering temperature. The model provides a design tool for optimizing IPL process. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.