Laser Curing of Inkjet Printed Strain Gauge Structures

O. Kravchuk (Lviv Polytechnic National Univ., Ukraine), Y. Bobitski (Lviv Polytechnic National Univ., Ukraine and Univ. Rzeszow, Poland), M. Reichenberger (Tech. Hochschule Nürnberg, Germany)

In this work the fabrication of strain sensors based on the resistive principle using inkjet printing of silver nanoparticles was investigated. Laser sintering was studied as an alternative sintering process. Printed on polyimide substrate silver structures were sintered using a continuous wave 405 nm diode laser. Gauge factors of printed strain gauges of around 3.6 (after laser sintering) have been achieved.