High conductive and scalable Ag nanowires flexible transparent electrode by nanowelding with physical methods

Abstract

Transparent electrodes (TEs) are very important for electronic devices. At present, ITO is gaining the largest market share but will be reduced. Ag nanowires (AgNWs) TEs is acknowledged as one of the most potential alternative to ITO. However, AgNWs TEs still have electrical problems because of the low contact between the AgNWs. In this paper, we report three physics methods to increase the conductivity of AgNWs TEs by nanowelding the contact of nanowires. For heat-resistant materials, 200 °C heat-nanowelding can help to reduce the sheet resistance by 96.7%. For pressure resistant materials, 20MPa pressure-nanowelding can help to increase the conductivity by 98.7%. And the transmittance (>90%) remains constant during the above process. Yet, both of these methods cannot improve the adhesion between nanowires and the substrates. Luckily, tight adhesion can be obtained by overcoating a PEDOT: PSS lalyer on AgNWs film which can reduce the sheet resistance by 87.8%. This means that things are usually not perfect, and they have their own advantages and lay the foundation for the popularization and application of AgNWs TEs. In a word, these three nano-welding methods are all suit for manufacture on a large scale for high conductive AgNWs TEs.