Application of rapid milling technology for fabrication of SiC nanoparticles

SiC nanoparticles were successfully fabricated by a high energy ball milling method, so that can be used in the printed electronics to make SiC thin film patterns. Here we utilized the waste of Si sludge for making the SiC nanoparticles. In order to achieve uniform thin film from the nanoparticle ink, fine sized SiC nanoparticles less than 100 nm has to be uniformly dispersed. In this study, we employed the ultra apex milling (UAM) system for particle comminution and dispersion. We investigated the effects of milling parameters, e.g., size of ZrO2 bead and milling time. The size of the SiC particles reached about 103 nm after 4 hours of UAM, when the ZrO2 beads of 50 microm were used. Then SiC ink was formulated with organic solvents and a dispersing agent. A specially designed pattern was printed by an ink-jet printer for evaluating the feasibility of the SiC nanoparticle inks.