Preparation and Properties of Double-Sided AgNWs/PVC/AgNWs Flexible Transparent Conductive Film by Dip-Coating Process

Abstract

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.The double-sided transparent conductive films of AgNWs/PVC/AgNWs using the silver nanowires and PVC substrate were fabricated by the dip-coating process followed by mechanical press treatment. The morphological and structural characteristics were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM), the photoelectric properties and mechanical stability were measured by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) spectrophotometer, four-point probe technique, 3M sticky tape test, and cyclic bending test. The results indicate that the structure and photoelectric performances of the AgNWs films were mainly affected by the dipping and lifting speeds. At the optimized dipping speed of 50 mm/min and lifting speed of 100 mm/min, the AgNWs are evenly distributed on the surface of the PVC substrate, and the sheet resistance of AgNWs film on both sides of PVC is about 60 Ω/sq, and the optical transmittance is 84.55 % with the figure of merit value up to 35.8. The film treated with the 10 MPa pressure shows excellent adhesion and low surface roughness of 17.8 nm and maintains its conductivity with the sheet resistance change of 17 % over 10,000 cyclic bends. Keywords BackgroundTouch panels have a great market demand due to their brilliant operation performances [1][2][3]. As an electrode component for these touch panels, the double-sided transparent conductive film (TCF) with high transparency and conductivity on both sides of a substrate is demanded [4]. Currently, in the preparation process of doublesided transparent conductive films, two single-sided indium tin oxide (ITO) films were prepared firstly, and then the two single-sided ITO films were pasted on the two sides of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate as upper or under circuit [5, 6]. This process is very complicated and prolixity. In addition, due to the high cost and fragility of ITO, there is a demand to replace ITO with other conductive films and develop a new preparation method for double-sided transparent conductive films.There were transparent conductive films such as metal oxide film, polymer film and carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene, and metal nanowire films (MNWs) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Among these films, the MNWs film was attractive due to its high conductivity and transparency. In particular, the silver nanowires (AgNWs) films are promising for applications in optoelectronic devices resulting from their brilliant electrical, optical, and mechanical characteristics [20][21][22].The AgNWs films were usually prepared by the Mayer ro...