Low Temperature Grown Graphene on Ultra-Long Copper Nanowire By Carbon-Enclosed Chemical Vapor Deposition As Stable Transparent Conducting Electrodes in Harsh Environments

Abstract

Replacement of indium doped tin oxide (ITO) by metallic nanowires, metal mesh, CNT and graphene plays key role due to scarcity of indium and its brittleness for flexible optoelectronic devices. Copper nanowires synthesized by solution process are an attractive alternative to ITO due to the abundance of Cu and the low cost of solution process. However, it suffers oxidation and corrosion problems, which mainly affect the optoelectronic properties. Here, we proposed a new technique to achieve low temperature deposition of graphene to protect copper nanowire by carbon-enclosed chemical vapor deposition (CE-CVD) at 400 °C with a the low sheet resistance of 9 Ohms/sq and a transmittance of 85%. Graphene coted copper nanowire on glass show excellent oxidation resistance without sacrificing electrical conductivity even annealing at 240 °C in oxygen ambient more than 2 hr and also shows an excellent anti-corrosion in highly corrosive environments such as sea water, acidic and basic solutions. The highly stable non-corrosive and anti-oxidant graphene coated copper nanowire can be used as an alternative transparent conducting electrode (TCE) for emerging optoelectronic devices and applications working in harsh environments.