Abstract
Transparent conductive films with hexagonal and square patterns were fabricated on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrates by screen printing technology utilizing a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and silver nanowire (Ag NWs) composite ink. The printing parameters—mesh number, printing layer, mass ratio of PEDOT:PSS to Ag NWs and pattern shape—have a significant influence on the photoelectric properties of the composite films. The screen mesh with a mesh number of 200 possesses a suitable mesh size of 74 µm for printing clear and integrated grids with high transparency. With an increase in the printing layer and a decrease in the mass ratio of PEDOT:PSS to Ag NWs, the transmittance and resistance of the printed grids both decreased. When the printing layer is 1, the transmittance and resistance are 85.6% and 2.23 kΩ for the hexagonal grid and 77.3% and 8.78 kΩ for the square grid, indicating that the more compact arrangement of square grids reduces the transmittance, and the greater number of connections of the square grid increases the resistance. Therefore, it is believed that improved photoelectric properties of transparent electrodes could be obtained by designing a printing pattern with optimized printing parameters. Additionally, the Ag NWs/PEDOT:PSS composite films with hexagonal and square patterns exhibit high transparency and good uniformity, suggesting promising applications in large-area and uniform heaters.
Highlights
In recent years, transparent and conducting films have been widely used in emerging optoelectronic devices such as touch screens, lighting and display panels, solar cells, and wearable electronic devices [1,2,3,4,5]
Pristine film with square the grids with square pattern using the same printing layer and concentrated ink, revealing that pattern exhibited a transmittance of 80.2% and resistance of 45.60 kΩ, suggesting similar photoelectric effective electronic conducting pathway in the grid could be obtained by designing the pattern property with that of the hexagonal grid
7b. conducted, with the high temperature exceeds the indicating that the flexible heaters based on the Ag NWs/PEDOT:PSS composite grids can melting point of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), resulting in the deformation of the substrate
Summary
Transparent and conducting films have been widely used in emerging optoelectronic devices such as touch screens, lighting and display panels, solar cells, and wearable electronic devices [1,2,3,4,5]. The fabrication methods of metal meshes on flexible substrates typically include laser sintering [16], ink filling [17], templating [18], inkjet printing [19,20,21,22], photolithography [23] and nano-imprint lithography [24]. Zhang et al combined the inkjet printing method and the coffee ring effect to prepare an Ag mesh with a line width of 5–10 μm, a transmittance of 93.6%, and a sheet resistance of 30 Ω/sq [20] They further improved the robust adhesion of metal mesh to substrate by hydrophilic treatment without decreasing the photoelectric performance of the TCE film [22]. The heating performances of the meshes with hexagonal and square pattern were discussed
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