Inkjet printing of 8% Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2 (YSZ) thin films is achieved by designing a novel water-based reactive ink for Drop-on-Demand (DoD) inkjet printing. The ink formulation is based on a novel chemical strategy that consists of a combination of metal oxide precursors (zirconium alkoxide and yttrium salt), water and a nucleophilic agent, i.e. n-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). This chemistry leads to metal-organic complexes with long term ink stability and high precision printability. Ink rheology and chemical reactivity are analyzed and controlled in terms of metal-organic interactions in the solutions. Thin dense nanocrystalline YSZ film below 150 nm are obtained by low temperature calcination treatments (400-500 {\deg}C), making the deposition suitable for a large variety of substrates, including silicon, glass and metals. Thin films and printed patterns achieve full densification with no lateral shrinkage and high ionic conductivity.
@article{arxiv.1904.08143,
title = {Aqueous metal-organic solutions for YSZ thin film inkjet deposition},
author = {C. Gadea and Q. Hanniet and A. Lesch and D. Marani and S. H. Jensen and V. Esposito},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.08143},
year = {2019}
}