Electrophotographically printed insulator

Because the toners for electrophotographic (laser) printing are based on electrically insulating organic polymers, digitally controlled patterned insulator layers can be printed directly. We fabricated Cr/printed-insulator/Cr capacitors with 10-μm- or 25-μm-thick laser-printed commercial toner layers as the dielectric between Cr electrodes. The capacitors had leakage currents of ∼1 nA/cm2 at the voltage of 100 V. The resistivity of the printed toner layer was ∼1013 Ω cm, the dielectric breakdown field ≥5×104 V/cm, and the dielectric constant ∼3.