Meter-scale transparent conductive circuits based on silver nanowire networks for rigid and flexible transparent light-emitting diode screens

Abstract

Meter-scale transparent conductive circuits based on silver nanowire (AgNW) networks are fabricated for transparent light-emitting diode (LED) screens on both rigid and flexible substrates. A 25-cm long AgNW transparent conductive strip is fabricated with a strip resistivity of 9.95 Ω/cm. A high uniformity is achieved in terms of film optical transmission (up to 84.5% in average) and sheet resistance (as low as 4.7 Ω/sq in average), superior to ITO. A transparent LED screen based on a 1.2-m ultralong AgNW circuit is demonstrated with LEDs emitting bright red, green and blue lights under different biases. The AgNW strip on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate shows mechanical flexibility and stable performance in bending tests. Based on this, a flexible transparent LED screen is proposed and presented. It works well when dynamically bent to a radius as small as ∼15 mm. Therefore, the AgNW transparent conductive circuits are very promising as a replacement to ITO circuits for such smart screens, to be integrated into modern glass architectures and display videos in various public places.