Issue 16, 2022

Flexible and transparent electrodes imprinted from metal nanostructures: morphology and opto-electronic performance

Abstract

We directed the self-assembly of nanoscale colloids via direct nanoimprint lithography to create flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) with metal line widths below 3 μm in a roll-to-roll-compatible process. Gold nanowires and nanospheres with oleylamine shells were imprinted with soft silicone stamps, arranged into grids of parallel lines, and converted into metal lines in a plasma process. We studied the hierarchical structure and opto-electronic performance of the resulting grids as a function of particle geometry and concentration. The performance in terms of optical transmittance was dominated by the line width. Analysis of cross-sections indicated that plasma sintering only partially removed the insulating ligands and formed lines with thin conductive shells and a non-conductive core. We provide evidence that the self-assembly of high-aspect nanowires can compensate for defects of the stamp and substrate irregularities during imprinting, while spheres cannot. The wire-based electrodes thus outperformed the sphere-based electrodes at ratios of optical transmittance to sheet resistance of up to ≈ 0.9% Ωsq−1, while spheres only reached ≈ 0.55% Ωsq−1.

Graphical abstract: Flexible and transparent electrodes imprinted from metal nanostructures: morphology and opto-electronic performance

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 4 2022
Accepted
02 7 2022
First published
05 7 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale Adv., 2022,4, 3370-3380

Flexible and transparent electrodes imprinted from metal nanostructures: morphology and opto-electronic performance

L. F. Engel, L. González-García and T. Kraus, Nanoscale Adv., 2022, 4, 3370 DOI: 10.1039/D2NA00259K

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