Microscale Hybrid Additive Manufacturing of Ultra-Fine, Embedded Cu/Ag(shell)–P4VP(core) Grid for Flexible Transparent Electrodes

Abstract

Flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) with embedded metal mesh composed of composite materials or structures have excellent comprehensive performance, which has attracted extensive attention, but it also brings great challenges to its manufacturing. Herein, a simple and cost-effective fabrication process free of template, vacuum processes is proposed for high-performance FTEs with ultra-fine embedded Cu/Ag(shell)–P4VP(core) conductive grid via a microscale hybrid additive manufacturing technique. The produced FTE exhibits excellent properties with a sheet resistance of 2.5 Ω, a transmittance of 93% at a line pitch of 250 µm, and an ultra-fine line width of 4 µm, low surface roughness (Ra ≈ 5.28 nm), and excellent mechanical stability (no change in Rs after 100 adhesion and 150 scratch tests). The FTEs expose only a few conductive areas, which make it excellent environmental stability (no change in Rs after exposure to humidity environment for 72 h). The flexible electroluminescent device fabricated with this FTE has good bending and luminescent properties, showing great potential for flexible optoelectronic applications.