Abstract
In this report, an improvement of the electrical performance and stability of a silver nanowire (AgNW) transparent conductive coating (TCC) is presented. The TCC stability against oxidation is achieved by coating the AgNWs with a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) layer. As a result, a UV/ozone treatment has not affected the morphology of the AgNWs network and the PVA protection layer, unlike non-passivated TCC, which showed severe degradation. The irradiation with an intense pulsed ion beam (IPIB) of 200 ns duration and a current density of 30 A/cm2 is used to increase the conductivity of the AgNWs network without degradation of the temperature-resistant PVA coating and decrease in the TCC transparency. Simulations have shown that, although the sample temperature reaches high values, the ultra-high heating and cooling rates, together with local annealing, enable the delicate thermal processing. The developed coatings and irradiation strategies are used to prepare and enhance the performance of AgNW-based transparent heaters. A single irradiation pulse increases the operating temperature of the transparent heater from 92 to 160 °C at a technologically relevant voltage of 12 V. The proposed technique shows a great promise in super-fast, low-temperature annealing of devices with temperature-sensitive components.
Highlights
Transparent conductive coatings (TCCs) are important building blocks in modern optoelectronic devices, such as touch panels, solar cells, thin film heaters, and others [1,2,3]
The TCCs were spin-coated with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
The TCCs with and without PVA coating were subjected to UV/ozone treatment for 10 and 20 min
Summary
Transparent conductive coatings (TCCs) are important building blocks in modern optoelectronic devices, such as touch panels, solar cells, thin film heaters, and others [1,2,3]. A conventional approach to improve the conductivity of such TCCs is the post-synthetic annealing at temperatures ranging from 200 to 400 ◦C [19,20] While this step satisfies many applications, such a high temperature processing is not compatible with temperature-sensitive components used in AgNW TCCs, such as polymer substrates and protective coatings. The former is needed for flexible electronics applications, whereas the latter is required to improve the long-term mechanical and chemical stability of AgNWs, which are known to readily oxidize and sulfurize in the surrounding environment [21,22,23,24]
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