Low-temperature nanoredox two-step sintering of gelatin nanoskin-stabilized submicrometer-sized copper fine particles for preparing highly conductive layers

A conductive paste was prepared with submicrometer-sized copper fine particles that were coated by a gelatin nanoskin. The average particle size was ca. 130 nm. After drying, an oxidation-reduction two-step sintering process was proposed for these submicrometer-sized copper fine particles to obtain low-resistivity layers at a very low temperature. The optimized conditions gave a low resistivity of 8.2 × 10^-6 Ω cm, even when the particles were covered by a common polymer. Our results suggest that the formation of the small copper oxide prominences on the surface of the copper fine particles could be reduced at low temperatures, forming connected submicrometer-sized metallic copper particles.