Gold ink market to reach USD50 million in 2018, says IDTechEx Research
However, a new report from IDTechEx Research finds that with demand from medical applications, edge connectors and interfaces with organic materials such as sensors the market will growth to USD50 million in 2018, in the "most likely" scenario.
Scope today
There are several organizations using nano-particle gold inks today and others who make it internally but do not sell it externally, but most of the work is for R&D and some way from commercialization. The high cost of gold is the biggest barrier for adoption, and if it can be avoided alternatives will usually be used on a cost basis alone. However, gold has unique properties that make it suitable for some specific applications.
Applications that need gold ink
From the interviews conducted by IDTechEx with suppliers and users, the most compelling applications of gold ink are for electrodes in medical applications, where silver electrodes damage the sensing material due to silver migration, but also for interfacing electrodes with organic materials such as organic semiconductors for TFTs, memory and photo detectors, or where contacts/edge connectors need a highly conductive non tarnish surface.
There are also many novel uses of gold ink, being developed now, such as its use in "fourth generation" photovoltaics, and combining its electrical properties with its aesthetic qualities in devices such as helmet visors and touch switches.
2013-2019 Forecast
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 use large amounts of the bulk material, could establish routes to becoming cost effective in niche markets. All this results in IDTechEx seeing the market move from USD720,000 in 2013 to a USD50 million market in 2018.
Visit IDTechEx at www.IDTechEx.com/gold
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