Abstract
The present study investigates processing routes to obtain highly conductive and transparent electrodes of silver nanowires (AgNWs) on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. The AgNWs are embedded into a UV-curable polymer to reduce the electrode roughness and enhance its stability. For the purpose of device integration, the AgNWs must partially protrude from the polymer, which demands that their embedding is followed by a transfer step from a host substrate to the final substrate. Since the AgNWs require some sort of curing (thermal or plasma) to reduce the electrode sheet resistance, a thermally stable host substrate is generally used. This study shows that both thermally stable polyimide, as well as temperature-sensitive PET can be used as flexible host substrates, combined with a gentle, AgNW plasma curing. This is possible by adjusting the fabrication sequence to accommodate the plasma curing step, depending on the host substrate. As a result, embedded AgNW electrodes, transferred from polyimide-to-PET and from PET-to-PET are obtained, with optical transmittance of ∼80% (including the substrate) and sheet resistance of ∼13 Ω/sq., similar to electrodes transferred from glass-to-glass substrates. The embedded AgNW electrodes on PET show superior performance in bending tests, as compared to indium-tin-oxide electrodes. The introduced approach, involving low-cost flexible substrates, AgNW spray-coating and plasma curing, is compatible with high-throughput, roll-to-roll processing.
Highlights
IntroductionPressing negatively affects the transmittance of the NW film due to broadening of the NW diameter, as shown by Hu et al [10]
It was possible to use plasma curing even in the case where the embedded wires resided on a temperature-sensitive polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate
This was due to the fact that the embedding UV-curable polymer acts as a thermal buffer, dissipating the generated heat, preventing substrate damage
Summary
Pressing negatively affects the transmittance of the NW film due to broadening of the NW diameter, as shown by Hu et al [10] Another reported technique to minimize the contact resistance between the NWs without damaging the heat-sensitive PET substrate was the use of plasmonic flash light curing [11] In this case, an RMS roughness of 10.5 nm and a relatively high Rs of ∼51 Ω/sq. It is shown that the polymer matrix acts as a thermal buffer to enable the plasma curing of the AgNWs without damaging the PET substrate Both variants were shown to lead to high performance TEs, with differences in the roughness and optical haze. AgNWs on PET show superior performance in all bending tests as compared to ITO on PET
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
