Smooth-surface silver nanowire electrode with high conductivity and transparency on functional layer coated flexible film

Abstract

Transparent conductive electrode (TCE) with silver nanowires has been widely studied as an alternative of indium tin oxide for flexible electronic or optical devices such as organic light-emitting diodes, and solar cells. However, it has an issue of surface roughness due to nanowire's intrinsic properties. Here, to achieve a smooth electrode with high conductivity and transmittance on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates, a functional layer of poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) is utilized with a mechanical transfer process. The silver nanowire electrode on PVP-coated PET with low surface roughness of 9nm exhibits the low sheet resistance of 18Ω□−1 and high transmittance of 87.6%. It is produced by transferring the silver nanowire electrode spin-coated on the glass to PVP-coated PET using a pressure of 10MPa for 10min. Silver nanowire electrode on PVP-coated PET demonstrates the stable sheet resistance of 18Ω□−1 after the mechanical taping test due to strong adhesion between PVP functional layer and silver nanowires. Smooth TCE with silver nanowires could be proposed as a transparent electrode for flexible electronic or optical devices, which consist of thin electrical active layers on TCE.