Silver nanowire (AgNW) networks have attracted great attentions as promising flexible and transparent electrodes due to their excellent conductivity, transmittance and mechanical flexibility for various electronic applications such as solar cell, light emitting diode, touch sensors and transparent heater. Commonly, AgNW networks can be readily deposited by conventional solution processes such as spin-coating, bar coating, drop casting, and spray coating. In such conventional solution processes, however, random AgNW network causes several drawbacks such as rough surface morphology, entanglement between NWs, junction resistance, which deteriorate the device performance. In addition, the scalability and large scale uniformity of opto-electronic performances are limited by non-uniform distribution of random network. Here, we suggest a solution-based capillary printing technique for the highly aligned AgNW arrays for high performance transparent electrodes. We show that precise manipulation of NW alignment enables smooth surface morphology and overcome trade-off relation between electrical conductivity and optical transmittance. In addition, aligned AgNW electrodes exhibit superior opto-electronic properties (Rs: 19.5 Ω sq-1, T: 96.7%) compared to that of random AgNW electrodes (Rs: 20 Ω sq-1, 92.9%) and thus achieve outstanding device performance with luminance and power efficiency of 14.25 cd A-1 and 10.62 lm W-1 for organic light emitting diodes, and power conversion efficiency of 8.57% in organic solar cells. To further enhance the scalability, we also demonstrate scalable bar coating alignment technique, which enables to fabricate large scale aligned AgNW transparent electrodes. Perpendicularly-aligned AgNW arrays show highly uniform distribution in both conductivity and transmittance with the area over 20 × 20 cm2. Flexible transparent heater using orthogonal AgNW arrays demonstrates substantial enhancement of thermoelectric performances compared with that with random AgNW networks. Flexible touch screen panel using orthogonal AgNW arrays exhibits clear touch sensor signals with excellent large scale uniformity.

Aligned silver nanowire transparent electrodes for flexible electronic devices

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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