Thermally reduced graphene oxide film on soda lime glass as transparent conducting electrode

Abstract

Abstract Here we report application of commercially available soda lime glass as transparent, conducting electrodes. Transparent glass substrate, without any surface preparation, was coated with reduced graphene oxide (rGO), through a simple, scalable, easy-to-operate and low-cost deposition technique to render conductivity to it. The process involved dip coating of graphene oxide (GO) solution on soda lime glass, followed by reduction of GO to rGO by thermal annealing process at 500 °C in Ar or Ar + H2 atmosphere. Though there was no significant effect of atmosphere (Ar or Ar + H2 gases) on the transmittance of the electrode, lower sheet resistance was observed in the films reduced under Ar + H2 cover, as compared to those reduced in only Ar atmosphere. The highest transmittance of 97.98% and lowest sheet resistance of 12.55 × 103 Ω/sq was achieved under different processing conditions. De-bonding energy of GO and rGO (Ar and Ar + H2 treated) with the soda lime glass was also quantified using nanoscratch technique to throw light on the adhesion behavior of the film with the substrate.