Indium tin oxide (ITO), currently widely used as a transparent conductive material to OLED, solar cells and EC devices, has advantages such as low sheet resistance and high transmittance, but it has defects such as inflexibility, fragility and vacuum process production. Alternative transparent conductive materials are required to replace ITO. Silver nanowires (AgNW) have one of attractive attention because AgNW dispersed films show low sheet resistance and high transparency, and even more excellent flexibility, and solution process production. However, the current AgNW films have higher resistance than that of ITO because diameter of AgNW is sub mm order and poor formation of two-dimensional network of AgNW. Therefore, we aimed to reduce the resistance of AgNW film by thinning diameter of AgNW, which is expected to improve conductivity by increasing number of AgNW while maintaining transparency.Synthesis thinning diameter of AgNW was performed by a polyol reduction method using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and Br- ion as capping agents, and Ag+ ion was reduced to Ag metal by thermal decomposition of ethylene glycol. As PVP and Br- ion are selectively adsorbed on Ag(100) plane, Ag(111) plane grew, resulting in AgNW production. The reactant solution including NaCl, NaBr, PVP, and AgNO3 in ethylene glycol was heated to 130 ˚C to synthesize AgNW. Br- ion was first added before heating, and the synthesis was carried out at NaBr concentrations ranging from 0 µM to 59.8 µM. As a result, AgNW production was confirmed at the low NaBr concentrations below 53.1 µM, but thin AgNW was not observed. At the high NaBr concentration above 53.1 µM, no AgNW synthesis was observed because Br- ion inhibited the growth of AgNW.Next, we examined the timing of addition of Br- ion at the NaBr concentration of 53.1 µM. When excess Br- ion was added before heating, we supposed that it would inhibit the formation of AgCl nuclei and prevent AgNW growth. When Br- ion was added within 1 hour after the start of heating, the growth of AgNW was inhibited by Br- ion and the synthesis of AgNW could not be confirmed as same as the case of NaBr addition before heating. Addition of Br- ion over 1 hour after the start of heating did not also result in the formation of thin AgNW because the growth of thick AgNW had already been completed. By addition of Br- ion at 1 hour after the start of heating, the formation of thin AgNW was observed.The crude dispersed AgNW solution was diluted in ethanol and then stood for several hours to precipitate thick AgNW. The supernatant solution was pipetted and thin AgNW was precipitated by adding acetone to remove ethylene glycol. The purified thin AgNW were deposited on glass slides by the spray-coating method. Annealing of the deposited substrate at 130 ˚C was used to confirm the decrease in resistance. As a result of resistance measurement, a sheet resistance of 34.6 Ω/sq was achieved at 90% transmittance, and the transparent conductive material was successfully fabricated.
Read full abstract