Transparent flexible electrodes based on a AgNW network reconstructed by salt

Abstract

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) as candidates to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) have received great research interest for applications like wearable devices, human motion detection sensors and touch panels. To obtain high performance devices, scientists have made numerous attempts to decrease the sheet resistance and increase optical transmittance, which directly contradict each other. Here, we propose and demonstrate a low cost, facile and green process to fabricate flexible transparent electrodes with the new silver nanowire network and the reduced junction resistance at room temperature. Firstly, salt pre-coated on a glass substrate would help AgNWs to slightly aggregate around salt particles and form a sparser AgNW network, which could lead to higher transmittance. Moreover, Ag⁺ ions which redeposit on AgNW–AgNW junctions could result in a further increase in the conductivity. An IR camera was used to monitor the heat variation of samples with different AgNW networks when different voltages were applied. These results indicated that the AgNW–PUA films with the new AgNW network could create more AgNW–AgNW junctions and we could observe performance improvements of the films with the new AgNW network after an annealing process was totally complete. The final results showed that conductivity and transmittance could be increased by 21% and 2.6% respectively. Furthermore, the AgNW–PUA (urethane acrylate) composite films exhibited an excellent bending performance without any additional conductive polymer, which means that our films are suitable for emerging optoelectronic devices.