Nanopatterned metallic transparent electrodes for the near-infrared spectrum

Abstract

Near-infrared transparent electrodes constitute an essential component of light-emitting and photovoltaic devices widely employed in short- and long-range communication, light detection and ranging, biodiagnostics, security, virtual and augmented reality, night vision, gas sensing, and solar cells. However, the efficiency of all these devices and related applications suffers from significantly reduced transmittance of the indium tin oxide electrode compared to the visible wavelength range. Here, we explore the potential of randomly and uniformly arranged silver, gold, and aluminum nanopore and nanowire films for the near-infrared optoelectronics. We show that these metallic nanopatterned layers, except for randomly arranged nanoporous configurations, exhibit considerably higher performance than the commonly used indium tin oxide. Furthermore, silver layers possess higher transmittance and lower haze than gold and aluminum ones, while the nanowire configuration overperforms the nanoporous one. The obtained results offer a means for deeper analysis of metallic nanopatterned transparent electrodes for many near-infrared optoelectronic applications.