Pseudo-Biological Highly Performance Transparent Electrodes Based on Capillary Force-Welded Hybrid AgNW Network

Abstract

Graphene/silver nanowire composite films have great potential as transparent conductive electrodes in the field of optoelectronic devices. So far, antioxidant and reducing the junction resistance are two major parameters in the silver nanowire electrode studies. In this paper, a pseudo-biological inspired structure for transparent electrodes was proposed by combining hybrid diameters silver nanowire network with the chemical vapor deposition-grown (CVD-grown) graphene as a passivation layer. Compared with the traditional structure, the silver nanowire network with this novel structure of human vascular tissue network greatly reduced the sheet resistance. An environmentally friendly liquid, deionized water, was selected for the generation of capillary forces at the liquid bridge, thereby improving the wire junction problem. After welding with the capillary force, the increase in the value of the figure of merit (FoM = σDC/σOP) acted a pivotal part in improving conductivity with excellent optical performance. In addition, graphene was chosen as an encapsulation layer to protecting silver nanowires from oxidation while improving electrical properties. Compared with the silver nanowire films with a diameter of 20 nm, the σDC/σOP of the graphene/silver nanowire composite film increased by 69.6 % with a sheet resistance of 26.4 Ω/sq. More importantly, graphene is supposed to protect silver nanowires from oxidation and moisture, which makes the composite films promising as electrodes for underwater optoelectronic devices or a possible development in high humidity environments.

Keywords

• Capillary force welding
• graphene
• hybrid diameters silver nanowire network
• pseudo-biological structure