High-performance transparent and flexible electrodes made by flash-light sintering of gold nanoparticles

• Metallic nanowire-based transparent electrodes (TEs) are potential alternatives to indium tin oxide (ITO). To achieve a high performance [sheet resistance (Rs) < 100 Ω/sq, transmittance (T%) > 90%], the nanowires must have a high length-to-diameter (L/D) ratio to minimize the number of wire-to-wire junctions. Attempts to produce TEs with gold nanowires have been made, and the results reveal difficulties in achieving the requirements. A successful strategy involves creating templated gold nanonetworks through multiple procedures. Here, we present a simple and efficient method that uses flash-light sintering of a gold nanonetwork film into gold TEs (Rs: 82.9 Ω/sq, T %: 91.79%) on a thin polycarbonate film (25 μm). The produced gold TEs have excellent mechanical, electrical, optical, and chemical stabilities. Mechanisms of the formation of gold nanonetworks and the effect of flash-light have been analyzed. Our findings provide a scalable process for producing transparent and flexible gold electrodes with a total processing time of less than 8 min without the use of heating, vacuum processing, and organic chemicals and without any material loss. This is possible because all the gold nanoparticles have been aggregated and filtrated on the filter membranes. The area density of gold is 0.094 g/m2 leading low material costs, which is very competitive with the price of commercial TEs.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

transparent electrode

flexible electrode

gold nanoparticles

flash-light sintering

high performance

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)