Interfacial Growth of Controllable Morphology of Silver Patterns on Plastic Substrates

Abstract

Controllable growth of newly born silver nanoparticles to fractal, cauliflower-like, microscale disks and continuous silver layers with high conductivity and reflectivity on plastic substrates has been developed via solid-liquid interfacial reduction and growing of ion-doped polymeric films. Such approaches involve polyimide (PI) films as substrates, its corresponding silver-ion-doped precursors as solid oxidants, and facile immersion of ion-doped polymeric films in aqueous reducing solution. The solution reducing process belongs to liquid-solid interfacial reduction processes, during which silver ions doped in polymeric matrix transformed to newly born silver nanoparticles which further aggregated and migrated along the liquid-solid interface to form dendrite, cauliflower-like and lamella disk-like architecture and/or severely compact continuous silver nanolayers with highly reflective and conductive properties. Time-dependent morphology evolutions of silver particles were traced by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). This strategy can also extend to synthesis of many other metals on polymeric films while maintaining outstanding metal-polymer adhesion based on incorporation of various metal ions, and may offer an opportunity to fabricate large scale, high-output, cost-effective processes for metal patterns on flexible polymeric substrates.

Rapid fabrication of silver microplates under an oxidative etching environment consisting of O2/Cl−, NH4OH/H2O2, and H2O2

“…6 Due to the positive electrochemical potentials in eqn (2), ijAgIJNH 3 ) 2 ] + can be reduced by H 2 O 2 . 8,36,37 With the presence of NH 4 OH, ijAgIJNH 3 ) 2 ] + instantaneously forms due to the high complex formation constant of NH 3 with Ag + (K f = 1.6 × 10 7 ). 40 We hypothesized that ijAgIJNH 3 ) 2 ] + functioned as the silver supply for the formation of AgMPs.…”

“…8,36 Recently, direct synthesis of a silver microdisk on a plastic substrate by H 2 O 2 reduction was demonstrated. 37 This paper reveals a simple yet efficient approach for the production of silver microplates via H 2 O 2 reduction of ijAgIJNH 3 ) 2 ] + complex under the influence of Cl − . For the first time, we demonstrated fabrication of silver microplates under an etching environment containing O 2 /Cl − , NH 4 OH/H 2 O 2 , and H 2 O 2 .…”

“…21,[32][33][34] Although H 2 O 2 is well-known as a strong oxidizing agent, it is an efficient reducing agent under alkaline conditions. 8,[34][35][36][37] There are few reports exploiting the reducing capability of H 2 O 2 for the fabrication of silver micro-/nanostructures. Silver nanosheets and 3D flowerlike silver microstructures were fabricated by H 2 O 2 reduction of Ag + and ijAgIJNH 3 ) 2 ] + .…”

High-adhesive superhydrophobic 3D nanostructured silver films applied as sensitive, long-lived, reproducible and recyclable SERS substrates

“…In the HRTEM image of NPs, the 1/3{422} plane fringe with a 2.50 Å crystalline plane spacing can be observed. 41,42 The inset in Fig. 2b is the selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern of Fig.…”

Divergence of the long-wavelength collective diffusion coefficient in quasi-one- and quasi-two-dimensional colloidal suspensions

“…We report below the results of experimental studies of the effective collective . Detailed descriptions of the preparation and characteristics of the q2D and q1D systems we have studied have been published elsewhere [16]. The measurements were carried out about ten years ago, so we describe the key attributes of the preparation of the systems and the equipment used.…”