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New Opportunities for Gold: Conductive Inks for the Electronics Industry 2013-2019

Forecasts, applications, players and gold particle formulations for displays, sensors, solar, circuits and beyond

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Gold is a precious metal that is used in the electronics industry due to its stability characteristics. In this report we look at the opportunity for gold-based inks in the printed electronics space, assessing its potential penetration in applications varying from thin film transistors to emerging photovoltaics, photo-detectors and other types of sensors.
 
This report is looking to identify and assess the opportunities for a printable nano-gold ink, excluding its use in graphic arts applications.
 
Compelling benefits highlighted by potential users in our interviews are its high stability - unlike silver there is no crystal growth which is often damaging when interfacing with other materials- and no tarnishing, leading to high reliability and longevity. It has a high work function making it of particular interest as an electrode in many printed architectures. It is also of interest to those working with organic materials as these are prone to failure over time when interfaced with silver electrodes due to migration issues.
 
However, gold's high cost is an important disadvantage -starting with the costs for the bulk material. In fact, prices for silver inks are already considered too high, with efforts underway to identify solutions such as copper-based inks in order to reduce costs. Despite this, we have identified several market opportunities where the benefits of using gold could potentially outweigh the higher cost.
 
Market size of gold conductive ink for electrical and electronic applications US$ millions*
 
*For the full data set please purchase this report
 
Source: IDTechEx
 
There are several organizations using nano-particle gold inks today, but most of the work is R&D and some way from commercialisation. Suppliers of gold ink today that are selling ink commercially -albeit in small quantities- include NanoMas Technologies Inc, Johnson Matthey and Harima (inkjet-printed inks). Screen printable versions are also available (such as from Electroscience Ltd, UK). In addition to these, some companies have formulated gold inks in-house or supply gold inks to a few key customers, but do not make them available commercially.
 
All these companies are profiled and/or interviewed in this report, giving insight in the role that gold inks will play in future electronics applications.
 
Forecasts to 2019 are also included in this report, highlighting the most relevant applications in which the performance benefis of gold-based inks could outweigh its inherent high cost.
 
This report would be very useful to developers of gold inks, but also to companies who consider moving away from ink solutions based on other metals due to issues relating to their performance. The stability (no tarnishing, no oxidizing) that gold inks provide could be the non-compromising solution that, if applied in a way that doesn't utilise large amounts of the bulk material, could establish routes to becoming cost effective in niche markets.
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1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
1.1.Situation Today
1.1.Uses for printed nano-gold inks
1.1.Price of bulk silver and gold in US$/ounce
1.2.Gold-silver ration until 2012
1.2.Novel uses for printed nano-gold inks
1.2.Market Opportunities
1.3.Estimated market size for gold ink
1.3.Estimated market size for gold ink
2.GOLD INK: METRICS AND COMPARISONS WITH SILVER AND COPPER
2.1.Key specifications of gold, silver and copper
3.PRINTED ELECTRONICS: MARKETS OVERVIEW AND SIZE
3.1.Introduction
3.1.Description and analysis of the main technology components and devices representing printed and potentially printed electronics
3.1.Market forecast by component type for 2013-2019 in US $ billions, for printed and potentially printed electronics including organic, inorganic and composites
3.2.Market forecast by component type for 2013 to 2019 in US $ billions, for printed and potentially printed electronics including organic, inorganic and composites
3.2.Definitions
3.3.Total market opportunity
4.POTENTIAL GOLD INK APPLICATIONS IN PRINTED ELECTRONICS
4.1.Transistors and Memory
4.1.Semiconductor options for transistor technologies
4.1.Schematic of the tunable color filter. The combination of a gold film with ring-shaped holes and the use of liquid crystals (red and green) enables pixels of a defined color that can be turned on and off
4.2.MC10 potential uses of gold ink
4.2.Transistor and Memory academic research
4.3.OLED Displays/Lighting
4.3.From Printing to Nano-Printing
4.4.Photovoltaics
4.5.Gold prospects in Photovoltaics
4.5.1.ENSOL
4.5.2.Use of gold in thin film PV
4.6.Conductors, edge connectors, sensors, stretchable electronics
4.7.Sensors Applications utilizing gold
4.7.1.ETH Zurich
4.7.2.Imperial College London
4.7.3.MC10, USA
4.7.4.Stretchable electronics and gold
4.8.Other - Piezoelectric energy harvesters
4.9.IBM Nano-printing of gold
5.MARKET FORECASTS FOR GOLD NANOPARTICLE INKS, 2013-2019
5.1.Market Assessments
5.1.Estimated market size for gold ink
5.1.Potential outlook for gold in printed transistors and memory
5.2.Potential for printed sensors
5.2.Printed transistors and memory
5.3.Electrochemical Sensors including Organic Photodetectors
5.3.Potential for other conductor applications
5.4.Estimated market size for gold ink
5.4.Other conductor applications
5.5.Further Comments
5.6.Conclusions
6.COMPANY PROFILES
6.1.ElectroScience Ltd
6.1.Properties of silver and gold inks from Liquid X
6.1.Harima's gold nanoparticles
6.2.Electronic tracks printed at room temperature
6.2.Noritake gold pastes.
6.2.Harima
6.3.Johnson Matthey
6.3.ULVAC product table
6.3.Gold-based resistive strain gauges by Nanomad
6.4.Printed TFT utilizing NanoGold™ inks and a TEM image of Nanomas' gold nano-particles.
6.4.Liquid X Printed Metals Inc.
6.5.Nanomade
6.6.NanoMas
6.7.Noritake
6.8.ULVAC
APPENDIX 1: IDTECHEX PUBLICATIONS AND CONSULTANCY
TABLES
FIGURES
 

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The market opportunity for nanoparticle gold inks to reach $10 million by 2016

Report Statistics

Pages 48
Tables 14
Figures 12
Forecasts to 2019
 

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