Flexible transparent heaters based on silver nanotrough meshes

Abstract

Flexible transparent heaters based on silver nanotrough mesh were prepared by thermal evaporation of silver on sacrificial nanofiber templates fabricated by electrospinning. Due to the specific preparation process, the heaters have many advantages like large area uniformity, low resistance, high transparency, mechanical flexibility and strong adhesion to substrates. A rapid and effective heating (rising from 25 °C to 100 °C in 50 s) is obtained at a DC input of 7 V with a visible light transmittance as high as 87%, which results in a relatively high figure of merit for transparent heaters. Therefore, silver nanotrough mesh can be a promising candidate for transparent heating applications.