Simulation of conductivity made by inkjet-printed silver tracks in E-textiles with different weave patterns

The development of electric circuit fabrication on flexible polymer substrates has attracted a significant interest as a pathway to low-cost, comfortable movement, and large-area electronics among direct printing techniques. In this study, the inkjet printing technique was used as a simple method to chemically deposit silver nano and micro-particles (85–500 nm) to the polyester fabrics. It is done by the ejection of silver nitrate and ascorbic acid as a reducing agent to attain nano metals on the different weave patterns with different surface roughness to measure the conductivity variations. A four-contact method was used to measure the electrical conductivity of the deposited samples which is usually employed in the electrical assessment of films. COMSOL Multiphysics® modeling software is used in order to simulate the conductivity of printed silver tracks and finally the results of simulation and experimental works have been compared. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of surface roughness on the electrical conductivity of printed silver tracks.