Highly Conductive and Uniform Alginate/Silver Nanowire Composite Transparent Electrode by Room Temperature Solution Processing for Organic Light Emitting Diode

Abstract

A novel transparent electrode composed of alginate/silver nanowire (AgNW) with high conductivity and low roughness is fabricated via a solution process at room temperature. The sol-gel transition of the alginate triggered by CaCl solution bonds the AgNWs to the substrate tightly. Meanwhile, Cl in the solution can renovate the cracks on the AgNW surfaces created during the mechanical pressing, resulting in a great increase of the electrical conductivity. The alginate/AgNW composite film can reach a sheet resistance of 2.3 Ω/sq with a transmittance of 83% at 550 nm. The conductivity of the composite film remains stable after bending and tape tests, demonstrating excellent flexibility and great adhesion of AgNWs to the substrate. Moreover, the composite film shows better stability to resist longtime storage than conventional annealed-AgNW film. The organic light emitting diode using such alginate/AgNW composite film as anode presents current densities and luminances comparable to those of indium tin oxide (ITO) anode, and higher efficiencies are obtained due to the better charge balance.

Interface dipole for remarkable efficiency enhancement in all-solution-processable transparent inverted quantum dot light-emitting diodes

“…[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] To meet the requirements for lowcost, large-area manufacturing of transparent QD-LEDs, it requires that all functional layers, including the charge injection interlayers, quantum-dot light-emitting layer and the upper electrode, can be prepared using solution fabrication process. Many encouraging progresses have been made in developing solution-processable transparent conducting materials, including transparent conductive oxides, 12 graphene sheets, 13 conducting polymers, 14 silver nanowires (AgNWs), 15,16 and carbon nanotubes 17 , for upper electrode in transparent QD-LEDs. The advances in high quality solution procesable transparent electrodes, readily adopted through solution fabrication and transfer printing processes, provide a freedom for new device concepts and applications.…”

Highly Conductive Alkaline‐Earth Metal Electrodes: The Possibility of Maintaining Both Low Work Function and Surface Stability for Organic Electronics

“…In the case of transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs), graphene, metallic nanowires, and conductive polymers, and as well as indium‐doped tin oxide (ITO) in particular are favorable selections due to their promising optical transmittance while showing conductivity. [ 13–19 ] However, they exhibit poor performance working as the top cathodes in OLEDs (Section S1, Supporting Information). The composition of OLEDs, mostly small molecular organics, enables remarkable flexibility and transparency.…”

Emerging Novel Metal Electrodes for Photovoltaic Applications

“…[145] Selective etching at the junction of metal nanowires by H 2 O 2 or chloride and followed welding have been demonstrated to fuse the metal NWs together. [119,123,[146][147][148] This method, however, should be optimized on the solution concentration and exposure time in the process, to avoid the overetching which otherwise will make the conductivity of the electrode in an opposite direction. It should be further mentioned that, despite a number of strategies have developed to improve the performance of metal nanowire based transparent electrode, the combination of different strategies is the trend for making the electrode to meet the requirements in practical applications.…”