Abstract
The urgent demand for transparent flexible electrodes applied in wide bandgap devices has promoted the development of new materials. Silver nanoring (AgNR), known as a special structure of silver nanowire (AgNW), exhibits attractive potential in the field of wearable electronics. In this work, an environmentally friendly glycerol-based cosolvent polyol method was investigated. The Taguchi design was utilized to ascertain the factors that affect the yield and ring diameter of AgNRs. Structural characterization showed that AgNR seeds grew at a certain angle during the early nucleation period. The results indicated that the yield and ring diameter of AgNRs were significantly affected by the ratio of cosolvent. Besides, the ring diameter of AgNRs was also tightly related to the concentration of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). The difference of reducibility between glycerol, water, and ethylene glycol leads to the selective growth of (111) plane and is probably the main reason AgNRs are formed. As a result, AgNRs with a ring diameter range from 7.17 to 42.94 μm were synthesized, and the quantity was increased significantly under the optimal level of factors.
Highlights
With the development of flexible wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices, such as flexible thin-film transistors (TFT) [1,2], wearable display devices [3,4], photovoltaic devices [5], and energy storage devices [6], the requirement for flexible electrodes, especially ones that are transparent and printable, has become urgent
As a traditional transparent conductive thin film (TCF), indium tin oxide (ITO) is brittle and requires high temperature preparation, which limits its application in flexible TCFs [7,8]
AgNR can be fabricated into printable flexible transparent electrodes to form WBG semiconductor devices with superior performance
Summary
With the development of flexible wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices, such as flexible thin-film transistors (TFT) [1,2], wearable display devices [3,4], photovoltaic devices [5], and energy storage devices [6], the requirement for flexible electrodes, especially ones that are transparent and printable, has become urgent. As a traditional transparent conductive thin film (TCF), indium tin oxide (ITO) is brittle and requires high temperature preparation, which limits its application in flexible TCFs [7,8] To meet such demand, several materials like graphene [9], carbon nanotubes [10], metal grid [11,12], and metal nanowires [13,14] have been studied over the years and achieved some substantial results. The ring shape gives the conductive network stronger tensile resistance [24] Owing to these advantages, AgNR can be fabricated into printable flexible transparent electrodes to form WBG semiconductor devices with superior performance. The factors that influence the yield and average ring diameter were analyzed by the Taguchi design, and the growth mechanism was investigated by combining the results of structural characterization
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