Abstract
AbstractSilver nanowire networks can offer exceptionally high performance as transparent electrodes for stretchable sensors, flexible optoelectronics, and energy harvesting devices. However, this type of electrode suffers from the triple drawbacks of complexity of fabrication, instability of the nanowire junctions, and high surface roughness, which limit electrode performance and utility. Here, a new concept in the fabrication of silver nanowire electrodes is reported that simultaneously addresses all three of these drawbacks, based on an electrospun nanofiber network and supporting substrate having silver vapor condensation coefficients of one and near‐zero, respectively. Consequently, when the whole substrate is exposed to silver vapor by simple thermal evaporation, metal selectively deposits onto the nanofiber network. The advantage of this approach is the simplicity, since there is no mask, chemical or dry metal etching step, or mesh transfer step. Additionally, the contact resistance between nanowires is zero and the surface roughness is sufficiently low for integration into organic photovoltaic devices. This new concept opens the door to continuous roll‐to‐roll fabrication of high‐performance fused silver nanowire electrodes for myriad potential applications.
Highlights
Silver nanowire networks can offer exceptionally high performance as nano-network electrodes in two different ways: i) Bottom-up approaches in which transparent electrodes for stretchable sensors, flexible optoelectronics, and an electrospun polymer NF network serves energy harvesting devices
When the whole substrate is exposed to silver vapor by simple thermal evaporation, metal selectively deposits onto the nanofiber network
(PVP) nanowires doped with 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane (MPTMS) and 3-aminopropyl trimethoxysilane (APTMS) (Figure 1a) are electrospun directly onto flexible plastic substrates coated with a thin film of an organofluorine polymer-small molecule blend: poly(3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,10-heptadecafluorodecyl methacrylate) (PFDMA):trichloro(1H,1H,2H,2Hperfluorooctyl)silane (FTS) (Figure 1a,b(i))
Summary
Due to the combination of narrow nanowire diameter and the flattened, fused morphology of the nanowire networks fabricated using the method reported they are suitable as transparent substrate electrodes in OPV devices with a photoactive layer thickness of only 100 nm (Figure 4d and Table S1, Supporting Information) This demonstration bodes well for the prospect of using this electrode in high-performance OPVs of the future, because it is increasingly clear that for the large scale production of solution processed OPVs, the photoactive layer thickness will need to be increased to ≥300 nm,[22,23] because of the high defect density associated with much thinner bulk heterojunction (BHJ) layers together with the difficulty in achieving a uniform layer thickness over large areas using low cost printing methods. The cross-section SEM image in Figure 4c shows the expected semicircular cross section of the Ag nanowires and that the network is conformally covered by the PEDOT:PSS layer
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