Highly stable silver nanowires based bilayered flexible transparent conductive electrode

Abstract

A flexible transparent conductive electrode (TCE) with silver nanowires (AgNWs) is an essential component in flexible optoelectronic devices. Considerable efforts have been made to improve the transmittance and sheet resistance of AgNWs TCE for large area applications. However, long-term usages of AgNW TCEs are limited by their poor thermal and chemical stabilities under different atmospheric conditions. In this work, we propose to improve the opto-electrical properties by fabricating AgNWs layer on a metal mesh (MM) polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) substrate (AgNW/MM/PET). A bilayer structure of the AgNW/MM/PET was fabricated by bar coating, and it exhibited excellent opto-electrical properties with a transmittance of 90.3% and a sheet resistance of 0.745 Ω/sq. In addition, the fabricated AgNW/MM/PET showed more stable electrical performances than mono layer TCEs with AgNWs or metal mesh on PET under various environmental conditions, such as light, temperature, and humidity. The AgNW/MM/PET electrodes with excellent opto-electrical properties could be a possible replacement for indium tin oxide for large area flexible optoelectronic applications.