Abstract
Transparent electrodes are essential elements of devices bearing a screen or display, as well as solar cells, LEDs etc. To overcome the drawbacks presented by indium tin oxide, nanomaterials have been proposed for a long time as alternatives. Metal nanowires are particularly interesting for their high intrinsic electrical conductivity. Copper nanowires have attracted wide interest due to the low cost and high abundancy of the starting material. However, they are easily oxidized thus suitable strategies must be devised to prevent it. This review discusses the fundamental properties and challenges of copper nanowires, focusing on the efforts made to make them longer and thinner then the strategies to prevent oxidation and to join them in the network are presented. After that, mechanical properties are summarized and applications are presented, before conclusions and perspectives are finally given.
Highlights
Transparent conductors are key components of a wide range of devices that are common in everyday use
After the discovery of graphene, this has been proposed as indium tin oxide (ITO) alternative, which only matched, and surpassed, ITO performance when grown as a single large area graphene sheet [9], while sheets produced by liquid phase exfoliation showed lesser performance than carbon nanotubes [10,11,12]
This paper aims at giving a comprehensive overview on the topic including the most recent results, and is structured as follows: Section 2: Section 3: Section 4: Section 5: Section 6: Section 7: Electrical and optical properties of Cu NWs Oxidation prevention Joining of nanowires Mechanical properties Applications of copper nanowires Conclusions and perspectives
Summary
Transparent conductors are key components of a wide range of devices that are common in everyday use. Carbon nanotubes have been initially proposed as alternatives, as they ensure high conductivity and transparency [5,6,7,8]. Their performance never reached that of ITO. Silver nanowires (NWs) were proposed as an exciting ITO alternative given their high conductivity due to the metallic character. This paper aims at giving a comprehensive overview on the topic including the most recent results, and is structured as follows: Section 2: Section 3: Section 4: Section 5: Section 6: Section 7: Electrical and optical properties of Cu NWs Oxidation prevention Joining of nanowires Mechanical properties Applications of copper nanowires Conclusions and perspectives
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