Metal Nanomesh Research Articles

Smart Window Structures Based on Highly Conductive, Transparent Metal Nanomeshes and Thermochromic Perovskite Films

AbstractSmart windows are energy‐efficient windows whose optical transparency can be switched between highly transparent and opaque states in response to incident solar illumination. Transparent and conductive metal nanomesh (NM) films are promising candidates for thermochromic smart windows due to their excellent thermal conductivity, high optical transparency at near infrared wavelengths, and outstanding stability. In this study, ZnO/Au/Al2O3 NM films with periodicities of 200 and 370 nm are reported. The ZnO/Au/Al2O3 NM film with a 370 nm periodicity exhibits a transmittance over 90% at 550 nm and sheet resistance lower than 20 Ω sq−1. Based on a standard figure of merit, this structure outperforms current state‐of‐the‐art NM films. Here, the integration of ZnO/Au/Al2O3 NM films into a thermochromic perovskite smart window is also demonstrated. The transparency of the smart window structure is manipulated by transient resistive heating to trigger the thermochromic transition to the opaque state, which can be then maintained solely by 1‐sun, AM 1.5 G illumination. This climate‐adaptive, low power‐activated, and fast‐switching smart window structure opens new pathways toward its practical application in the real world.

Optical characterization and emission enhancement property of Ag nanomesh structure fabricated by nanosphere lithography

A metal nanomesh structure with regularly arranged nanosized holes has a light transmission property at a certain wavelength region and good conductivity; therefore, it can be applied to the wavelength-selective electrode of optical devices such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solar cells. In this study, Ag nanomesh structures with hole arrays of different sizes and periods were fabricated, and their electrical and optical properties were evaluated. Alq3, a green light-emitting material for OLEDs, was deposited on the fabricated Ag nanomesh, and its transmission, scattering, and photoluminescence (PL) spectra were investigated. The PL intensity of Alq3 was approximately four times higher than that without the Ag nanomesh. Time-resolved PL measurements showed the presence of a short-lived component in all samples with Ag nanomesh, indicating plasmonic emission enhancement. These results indicate that Ag nanomeshes can be applied as plasmonic electrodes in optical devices.

(Invited) The Role of Surface Inhibition in Deterministic Controlled Electrodeposition

Templated electrodeposition is a common practice for the fabrication of metal nanostructures. The nanostructure architecture is set by that of the nanoporous template. For complex nano-architectures such as the metal nanomesh (see Figure) which was developed in our group [1,2], templates will remain necessary. Nonetheless, the 3D nanoporous anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) used for the templated electrodeposition, did form by self-assembly. Regular AAO made from pure Al has only vertical pores with a hexagonal arrangement. The additional horizontal pores in the 3D-AAO are formed with regular interval by doping of the aluminum with Cu [1]. Such level of deterministic control on the growth direction is not yet achievable with electrodeposition. Yet, directed growth of pillars and nanowires has been achieved by control of current inhibiting surface layers, either introduced by additives [3] or intrinsic to the metal electrochemistry [4]. We will shortly discuss the example of indium electrodeposition where InCl intermediate adsorbate is believed to form a coating around electrodeposited indium, leading to large single crystalline morphologies and nanowires when guided by a shallow pattern [3].Conformal deposition of thin-film coatings on high aspect ratio structures is typically claimed by Atomic and Molecular Layer Deposition (ALD and MLD). The nature of the surface limited reactions of these vapor-phase methods allows for the formation of continuous sub-nanometer to a few tens of nanometer thin films with uniform thickness over the most complex architectures. The accuracy of the technique goes at the cost of long deposition cycles especially when very large surface areas with extreme aspect ratios (>100) are involved. In recent years, electrodeposition processes have shown where the metal electrodeposition reaction for e.g. Ni or Pt can be inhibited early on, similarly leading to sub-nanometer to few nanometer thick coatings by cycling [5, 6]. In this paper, we will show examples where this process can be used also to coat nano-architectures such as our nanomesh with very large surface area (100 cm2 per planar cm2) and aspect ratio (100x).Finally, the electrochemical fabrication of oxide thin-films by electro-precipitation and electrochemically induced sol-gel reactions will be discussed. The poor electronic conductivity of oxides makes that the reaction is maintained by ionic conduction through the films, similar as for oxide formation by anodization. The resistive nature of the layers typically allows also for good conformality over high aspect ratio substrates [7]. Similarly, thin polymer films such as poly-phenylene oxide or PPO can be made conformally [8].[1] "The Formation Mechanism of 3D Porous Anodized Aluminum Oxide Templates from an Aluminum Film with Copper Impurities" Johannes Vanpaemel, Alaa Abd-Elnaiem, Stefan De Gendt, Philippe M. Vereecken, J. Phys. Chem. C, 119 (4), 2105–2112 (2015); [2] “Combining High Porosity with High Surface Area in Flexible Interconnected Nanowire Meshes for Hydrogen Generation and Beyond" Stanislaw Zankowski and Philippe M. Vereecken, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 10 (51), pp 44634–44644 (2018); [3] “Electrodeposited free-standing single-crystal indium nanowires" G. Hautier, J. D’Haen, K. Maex and P.M. Vereecken, ESL 11, K49 (2008); [4] “Fabrication of complex architectures using electrodeposition into patterned self-assembled monolayers” N.S.Pesika, A. Radisic, K.J. Stebe, P.C. Searson, Nano Letters. 6, 1023-1026 (2006); [5] Electro-chemical deposition of sub-nanometer Ni films on TiN” Johannes Vanpaemel, Masahito Sugiura ,Daniel Cuypers, Marleen H. van der Veen, Stefan De Gendt, Stefan and Philippe M. Vereecken, Langmuir, 30 (8), 2047–2053 (2014); [6] “Self-Terminating Growth of Platinum Films by Electrochemical Deposition” Yihua Liu, Dincer Gokcen, Dincer Gokcen, Ugo Bertocci, Tom Moffat, Science 338(6112):1327-30 (2012); [7] "Electrodeposition of Adherent Submicron to Micron Thick Manganese Dioxide Films with Optimized Current Collector Interface for 3D Li-Ion Electrodes" Marina Timmermans, Nouha Labyedh, Felix Mattelaer, Stanislaw Zankowski, Stella Deheryan, Christophe Detavernier, and Philippe M. Vereecken, J. Electrochem. Soc. 164 , 14, D954-D963 (2017); [8] “Self-limiting electropolymerisation of ultrathin, pinhole free poly(phenylene oxide) film on Carbon Nanosheets” S. Deheryan, D. J. Cott, R. Muller, M. Heyns and P. M. Vereecken, Carbon, , 88, 42-50, (2015). Figure 1

Opto-Electrically Engineered Low Haze IZO/Ag/IZO Nanomesh Electrode for Highly Flexible Blue OLED

Although metal nanomesh (NM) has been demonstrated as a potential replacement to conventional indium tin oxide (ITO) as the flexible transparent conductive electrodes (FTCEs), it suffers from the diffraction and scattering of transmitted light that creates the optical haze [1, 2]. The persuasive methods for supressing the optical haze of NM (i.e., reducing the thickness, increasing the mesh hole size, or reducing the metal covered area), reported so far, are closely related to the conductivity of the electrode [3]. Herein, we propose a smart anti-reflective (AR) indium zinc oxide (IZO)/Ag/IZO nanomesh (IAINM) FTCEs to suppress the optical haze without affecting the conductivity of the electrode. Based on finite-domain time-difference (FDTD) simulation results, we have optimized the thickness of each top and bottom IZO layer as well as the size of holes in IAINM FTCEs. As a result, IAINM FTCEs (IZO (30 nm)/Ag(20 nm)/IZO(30 nm)) exhibited high transmittance (> 90% at 475 nm) and low sheet resistance of 9.4 Ω/sq on PET substrates. Accordingly, the optical haze of IAINM FTCEs was about 8% at 475 nm, which is 250% lower than AgNM FTCEs. Besides, the sheet resistance barely changed after 1000 bending cycles at a bending radius of 0.3 cm. Further, the blue TADF FOLEDs fabricated with the IAINM as anode exhibited improved external quantum efficiency (by 67%), current and power efficiency (by 71% and 85%, respectively) than the ITO-based OLEDs. After strain, the IAINM-based OLEDs exhibited the performance change of less than 20% while AgNM and ITO-based OLEDs showed the change of more than 30%. More detailed experimental and computational results will be presented at the conference.

Fatigue-Free Electrodes Enabled Joule Heating Device for Wearable Thermotherapy

Wearable Joule heating devices have received tremendous attention from researchers due to their applications in personal thermal management systems, like thermal management cloth, and healthcare application, such as wearable thermotherapy. Permeability, stretchability, dynamic stability, and conductivity are essential factors for electrothermal heating devices. Wearable devices usually work under cyclic loading of low stain, so fatigue, mechanical failure induced by cyclic loading at low strain level, is a common disease for metal electrodes. Fatigue-free materials are of great importance to ensure robustness for long-term application. Stretchable electrodes, such as noble metal nano mesh, conductive fillers-based elastomer and metal nanowires have been used to fabricate wearable heater. Liquid metal (LM) has also attracted lots of attention due to its high conductivity and fluidity at room temperature. Such fluidity not only makes LM attractive materials for flexible devices, but also render LM fatigue-free attribute. Many manufacturing methods, such as direct ink writing, screen printing and spray coating have been applied to fabricate LM based electrodes for flexible devices. Recently, electrospun technique have also been applied to fabricate LM particles doped polymer fibers, but LM based conductive fiber electrodes have not yet been fabricated using electrospun process. Here, a LM particles embedded fibers network electrode is fabricated using electrospun method, followed by wrapping a polymer layer on the fiber surface. The LM particles embedded in the electrospun fibers form interconnected network, which exhibits excellent electrical conductivity, high mechanical stretchability, and good fatigue performance. Such network electrode could be directly used as a Joule heater, which is permeable, stretchable and fatigue-free. High conductivity of the electrodes ensures low driving voltage for this electrothermal heating devices. High stretchability of the electrode ensures good Joule heating performance at high strain level. In addition, the uniform fibers size could induce large-scale uniform heating. The LM fiber electrodes could be cut into various patterns to fit curvilinear surface of human skin. Also, the ultrathin and compliant nature of the LM fiber electrode enable seamless attachment with human skin, which could ensure high thermal transfer efficiency. The combination of good electrical and mechanical performances of the LM fiber-based Joule heater enable long-term wearable thermotherapy.

Non-Iridescent Metal Nanomesh with Disordered Nanoapertures Fabricated by Phase Separation Lithography of Polymer Blend as Transparent Conductive Film.

Metallic nanomesh, one of the emerging transparent conductive film (TCF) materials with both high electrical conductivity and optical transmittance, shows great potential to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) in optoelectronic devices. However, lithography-fabricated metallic nanomeshes suffer from an iridescence problem caused by the optical diffraction of periodic nanostructures, which has negative effects on display performance. In this work, we propose a novel approach to fabricate large-scale metallic nanomesh as TCFs on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sheets by maskless phase separation lithography of polymer blends in a low-cost and facile process. Polystyrene (PS)/polyphenylsilsequioxane (PPSQ) polymer blend was chosen as resist material for phase separation lithography due to their different etching selectivity under O2 reactive ion etching (RIE). The PS constituent was selectively removed by O2 RIE and the remained PPSQ nanopillars with varying sizes in random distribution were used as masks for further pattern transfer and metal deposition process. Gold (Au) nanomeshes with adjustable nanostructures were achieved after the lift-off step. Au nanomesh exhibited good optoelectronic properties (RS = 41 Ω/sq, T = 71.9%) and non-iridescence, without angle dependence owing to the aperiodic structures of disordered apertures. The results indicate that this Au nanomesh has high potential application in high-performance and broad-viewing-angle optoelectronic devices.

Development of a soft UV-NIL step&repeat and lift-off process chain for high speed metal nanomesh fabrication

In this work, we present a fabrication procedure of metal nanomesh arrays with the newly developed nanoimprint resist mr-NIL212FC used in a bi-layer resist system for a lift-off process. We comparatively analyzed and evaluated nanomeshes fabricated with a freshly prepared h-PDMS/PDMS stamp and a stamp used 501 times. Therefore, we first performed a step&repeat imprint test run in a self-built low cost step&repeat UV-NIL setup. We inspected the imprint behavior of the stamp, the UV-transmission through the stamp as well as stamp lifetime and stamp degradation with regard to the possible changes of its surface roughness.The nanomesh fabrication process is characterized by a good lift-off performance, leading to a low defect density of <1.26 defects 100 µm−2. Even after 501 imprints, only a negligible stamp degradation occurred without effecting the imprint performance. Likewise, the same holds true for the nanomeshes, which showed comparable low defect densities and feature sheet resistances of 3.54 ± 0.14 Ω/□ for the first and 3.48 ± 0.23 Ω/□ for the 501st nanomesh, respectively. AFM analyses further revealed that the maximum height of the roughness Rt changed over the course of the 501 imprints from 6.3 nm to 13.3 nm, representing <5% of the overall imprint height.In general, the mr-NIL212FC resist shows a good wettability and compatibility with standard h-PDMS/PDMS stamps, a fast curing behavior, a high replication fidelity, easy separation characteristics, and a very low diffusion of resist components into the stamp. The mr-NIL212FC resist allows exposure times as short as 2 s in the applied tool setup, enabling high throughput production. Moreover, all performed measurements indicate that a much higher number of imprints with one stamp seem possible.

Hybrid transparent conducting glasses made of metal nanomesh coated with metal oxide overlayer

Industrially relevant conducting glasses come up with conducting coatings such as ITO with few hundred nm of thicknesses, where significant cost is attached to the slow deposition rates adopted for high-quality films. In this work, we have circumvented the issue by making hybrid transparent conducting electrodes consisting of metal mesh on a glass substrate with sputtered thin overlayers of metal oxides (<50–300 nm). The design is attractive as the hybrid electrode possesses excellent conductive property of the metal mesh (sheet resistance, ~5 Ω/square) while offering oxide surface finish for the conductive glass, which makes it relate well with the existing industry requirements based on ITO. By doing so, we have also addressed the issue of non-uniform electric field prevalent in the wire network systems as well as the surface roughness.

Vapor dealloying of ultra-thin films: a promising concept for the fabrication of highly flexible transparent conductive metal nanomesh electrodes

The booming market of flexible electronic displays has urged the development of highly flexible transparent conductive electrodes (FTCE)1–3 with the ability to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films routinely used as transparent conductive electrodes in photoelectronic devices. The high cost of indium and the poor mechanical stability of ITO under deformation are the main driving forces behind the development of this research area.4 The use of metal nanomeshes as FTCE is a promising concept with a real potential to substitute ITO in photoelectronic devices.5,6 However, the development of a low-cost fabrication approach allowing producing metal nanomesh electrodes with competitive prices and a high performance remains a real bottleneck for the photoelectronic industry. In this paper, we report on a robust approach very easy to implement allowing producing highly flexible metal nanomesh electrodes with high performance at a very low cost. This approach lies on a concept consisting in applying dealloying process to ultra-thin Au-Cu alloy thin films using acidic vapors instead of a liquid phase as routinely done in the literature. Using an appropriate procedure, the nanomeshes can be transferred to any planar or curved support where they can serve as a FTCE. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate that using this approach, one can easily fabricate gold nanomesh electrodes transferred onto polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film surface with 79% of transmittance and a sheet resistance as low as 44 Ω □−1 while maintaining exceptional stability under severe mechanical deformations.

Three-dimensional porous metal electrodes: Fabrication, characterisation and use

Abstract Diverse three-dimensional (3D) porous metal electrodes, including meshes, foams and felts, are used in electrochemical flow reactors for a wide range of industrial applications, such as energy storage, electrosynthesis and degradation of pollutants. Recent work centres on the hierarchical decoration and coating of 3D electrodes with catalysts, although the study of their performance in a controlled and reproducible flow and mass transfer environment ought to receive more attention. New advances have considered metal nanofelts and nanomesh porous electrodes with superior electrode surface area. Opportunities are found in additive manufacturing, advanced structural characterisation by, for example, X-ray computed tomography, and in the modelling of hydrodynamic characteristics, current distribution and mass transfer coefficient of these electrode materials.

Highly Transparent, Flexible Conductors and Heaters Based on Metal Nanomesh Structures Manufactured Using an All-Water-Based Solution Process.

Metal mesh is a promising material for flexible transparent conducting electrodes due to its outstanding physical and electrical properties. The excellent control of the sheet resistance and transmittance provided by the metal mesh electrodes is a great advantage for microelectronic applications. Thus, over the past decade, many studies have been performed in order to realize high-performance metal mesh; however, the lack of cost-effective fabrication processes and the weak adhesion between the metal mesh and substrate have hindered its widespread adoption for flexible optoelectronic applications. In this study, a new approach for fabricating robust silver mesh without using hazardous organic solvents is achieved by combining colloidal deposition and silver enhancement steps. The adhesion of the metal mesh was greatly improved by introducing an intermediate adhesion layer. Various patterns relevant to optoelectronic applications were fabricated with a minimum feature size of 700 nm, resulting in high optical transmittance of 97.7% and also high conductivity (71.6 Ω sq-1) of the metal mesh. In addition, we demonstrated an effective transparent heater using the silver mesh with excellent exothermic behavior, which heated up to 245 °C with 7 V applied voltage.

Frontside scattering structures for enhanced performance in flexible ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells

We demonstrate that frontside scattering structures combining a metal nanomesh transparent electrode with dielectric nanosphere (NS) arrays may improve the performance of ultrathin crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. The increased light scattering as characterized by increased haze from these structures leads to longer path lengths within the c-Si and thus, higher short-circuit current densities and improved power conversion efficiencies. We demonstrate a 69% improvement in power conversion efficiency with metal nanomesh/NS coatings compared to indium tin oxide. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ultrathin film c-Si solar cells are robust under repeated bending.

Large-Area Self-Assembly of Silica Microspheres/Nanospheres by Temperature-Assisted Dip-Coating.

This work reports a temperature-assisted dip-coating method for self-assembly of silica (SiO2) microspheres/nanospheres (SPs) as monolayers over large areas (∼cm2). The area over which self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are formed can be controlled by tuning the suspension temperature (Ts), which allows precise control over the meniscus shape. Furthermore, the formation of periodic stripes of SAMs, with excellent dimensional control (stripe width and stripe-to-stripe spacing), is demonstrated using a suitable set of dip-coating parameters. These findings establish the role of Ts, and other parameters such as withdrawal speed (Vw), withdrawal angle (θw), and withdrawal step length (Lw). For Ts ranged between 25 and 80 °C, the morphological analysis of dip-coatings shows layered structures comprising of defective layers (25-60 °C), single layers (70 °C), and multilayers (>70 °C) owing to the variation of SP flux at the meniscus/substrate assembling interface. At Ts = 70 °C, there is an optimum Vw, approximately equal to the downshift speed of the meniscus (Vm = 1.3 μm/s), which allows the SAM formation over areas (2.25 cm2) roughly 10 times larger than reported in the literature using nanospheres. Finally, the large-area SAM is used to demonstrate the enhanced performance of antireflective coatings for photovoltaic cells and to create metal nanomesh for Si nanowire synthesis.

Bimodal phase separated block copolymer/homopolymer blends self-assembly for hierarchical porous metal nanomesh electrodes.

Transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) are essential components in various optoelectronic devices. Nanostructured metallic thin film is one of the promising candidates to complement current metal oxide films, such as ITO, where high cost rare earth elements have been a longstanding issue. Herein, we present that multiscale porous metal nanomesh thin films prepared by bimodal self-assembly of block copolymer (BCP)/homopolymer blends may offer a new opportunity for TCE. This hierarchical concurrent self-assembly consists of macrophase separation between BCP and homopolymer as well as microphase separation of BCP, and thus provides a straightforward spontaneous production of a highly porous multiscale pattern over an arbitrary large area. Employing a conventional pattern transfer process, we successfully demonstrated a multiscale highly porous metallic thin film with reasonable optical transparency, electro-conductance, and large-area uniformity, taking advantage of low loss light penetration through microscale pores and significant suppression of light reflection at the nanoporous structures. This well-defined controllable bimodal self-assembly can offer valuable opportunities for many different applications, including optoelectronics, energy harvesting, and membranes.

Transparent Electrophysiology Microelectrodes and Interconnects from Metal Nanomesh.

Mapping biocurrents at both microsecond and single-cell resolution requires the combination of optical imaging with innovative electrophysiological sensing techniques. Here, we present transparent electrophysiology electrodes and interconnects made of gold (Au) nanomesh on flexible substrates to achieve such measurements. Compared to previously demonstrated indium tin oxide (ITO) and graphene electrodes, the ones from Au nanomesh possess superior properties including low electrical impedance, high transparency, good cell viability, and superb flexibility. Specifically, we demonstrated a 15 nm thick Au nanomesh electrode with 8.14 Ω·cm2 normalized impedance, >65% average transmittance over a 300-1100 nm window, and stability up to 300 bending cycles. Systematic sheet resistance measurements, electrochemical impedance studies, optical characterization, mechanical bending tests, and cell studies highlight the capabilities of the Au nanomesh as a transparent electrophysiology electrode and interconnect material. Together, these results demonstrate applicability of using nanomesh under biological conditions and broad applications in biology and medicine.

Electromagnetic Field Enhancement in the Multilayer of Metallic Nanomesh Films: Synthesis and Application as Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrates

We have fabricated uniform, large-area, and two-dimensional arrays of gold (and silver) nanomesh structures via metal sputtering on an anodic aluminum template. We studied the localized surface plasmon resonance originating from the edges of nanopores in the nanomesh structure. The resulting metal nanomeshes exhibited strong surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals, and the measured SERS response was highly uniform throughout the whole surface area. The localized surface plasmon enhancement at the edge of the nanopores in the metal nanomesh structures is believed to be responsible for the strong SERS response. Also, we fabricated Au/Ag multilayer nanomesh structures with different stacking orders to further enhance the SERS response by utilizing the junctions between Ag and Au nanomesh films. The irradiated light can effectively penetrate deep into the multilayer metal nanomesh films through the nanopores. The SERS enhancement is maximized when the nanomesh structures are stacked alternately with Au and Ag nanomeshes as compared to homogeneous Au/Au or Ag/Ag stacked nanomesh films.

Enhanced Light Extraction from Mechanically Flexible, Nanostructured Organic Light‐Emitting Diodes with Plasmonic Nanomesh Electrodes

Characteristics of light extraction from nanostructured organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) incorporating plasmonic metal nanomesh anodes are investigated for achieving high‐performance, flexible OLEDs. Given that flexibility of devices is limited by rigid and fragile constituents such as indium tin oxide electrodes, alternative transparent, and flexible electrodes including nanomesh‐type metal films have been widely studied, where high transparency, low resistance, and good flexiblity were regarded as essential requirements of high‐performance flexible applications due to the expectation that they are closely related to the device performance. However, here it is reported that a metal nanomesh optimized for high transmittance cannot promise high device efficiency when it is used as an anode of OLEDs. Systematic experiments together with analytic simulations elucidate that the surface plasmon loss is singnificantly reduced by metallic cathode nanostructures that were inherently formed from a periodic nanomesh anode, which results in huge enhancement of the light extraction, though the optimal period of the nanomesh anode for high light extraction is inconsistent with that for high transmittance. Further performance characterization of nanostructured OLEDs with metal nanomesh anodes provides insight into strategies to realize highly efficient flexible OLEDs.

Hierarchical metal nanomesh/microgrid structures for high performance transparent electrodes

We report a comprehensive study on the optical and electronic properties of hierarchical metal nanomesh (NM)/microgrid (MG) structures to evaluate their performance as transparent conductors (TCs).

High-durable AgNi nanomesh film for a transparent conducting electrode.

Uniform metal nanomesh structures are promising candidates that may replace of indium-tin oxide (ITO) in transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs). However, the durability of the uniform metal mesh has not yet been studied. For this reason, a comparative analysis of the durability of TCEs based on pure Ag and AgNi nanomesh, which are fabricated by using simple transfer printing, is performed. The AgNi nanomesh shows high long-term stability to oxidation, heat, and chemicals compared with that of pure Ag nanomesh. This is because of nickel in the AgNi nanomesh. Furthermore, the AgNi nanomesh shows strong adhesion to a transparent substrate and good stability after repeated bending.

Fabrication of Metallic Nanomesh: Pt Nano-Mesh as a Proof of Concept for Stretchable and Transparent Electrodes

Two-dimensional ordered arrays of honeycomb morphology of platinum are fabricated by using anodized aluminum oxide template and metal sputtering methods. The resulting metal films are highly conductible (71 Ω/sq), stretchable (16.8%), and transparent (75.2% at 550 nm). The presented synthetic strategy is scalable to large area without noticeable defects by incorporating the deposition of a thin layer of silver. In addition, both the pore size and wall thickness of platinum nanomesh films are straightforwardly controlled with sputtering time. As a proof of concept, the metal nanomesh films using AAO template suggest a new concept of synthesizing transparent and stretchable metal electrodes for future electronic devices.