Transparent conductive silver nanowire electrodes with high resistance to oxidation and thermal shock

Abstract

Oxidation is the main issue for silver-nanowire electrodes when bulk silver is reduced to nano-scale size, restricting its practical application due to the significant rise in sheet resistance. We report a simple method by virtue of incorporating polyethoxysiloxane (PES) into a silver-nanowire layer to enhance resistance to oxidation and thermal shock. As a result of the PES incorporation, the temperatures at which oxidation occurs were raised from 250 and 300 °C to 300 and 500 °C under air and N₂ atmospheres, respectively. Moreover, after PES incorporation the silver nanowires came into tighter contact at the cross connections due to sol–gel shrinkage, resulting in a nearly 2-fold enhancement in the conductivity and superior bend-test performance compared to the pristine AgNW electrodes. We used the silver-nanowire electrodes incorporated with PES to prepare a G/F/F-stack dual-touch sensor, revealing a rapid response and stable performance for more than 3 months.