Room-temperature processing of silver submicron fiber mesh for flexible electronics

Abstract

Ultrathin, patterned, conducting metallic fibers have been extensively studied as building blocks in flexible electronics. However, their scalable processing and attainment of patterns at room temperature is challenging. In this paper, we report on the patterning of ultra-long silver submicron fibers as woven mesh through the process of continuous draw spinning in the presence of ultraviolet (UV) treatment. The silver fibers can be directly intertwined on flexible substrates, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyimide (PI). The as obtained silver submicron fiber mesh present excellent photoelectric properties (T = 90%, R = 9 Ω sq −1) and outstanding flexibility and can be easily transferred on other surfaces. To demonstrate its application, flexible electrochromic smart window and infrared stealth film have been prepared.

Inflight fiber printing toward array and 3D optoelectronic and sensing architectures

“…The underlying substrates can dominate the optomechanical properties of the transparent conductor in the final device setting; further, the permissive, high surface area–to–volume ratio qualities of a fiber array are completely lost. In addition, from fiber synthesis to device integration, a multistep procedure or postsynthesis fiber treatments are often required to obtain adequate on-circuit, fiber bond-to-bond conductivity ( 10 ). This, in turn, restricts the materials library of conducting fibers that can be used.…”

Organic Flexible Electronics

“…Nanomaterials (3D, 2D, 1D, 0D), biological materials, ferroelectric polymers, and thermoelectric materials are also promising candidate materials for the preparation of flexible electronics. In addition to conventional thick and brittle conductive electrodes (e.g., Au, Cu, Ag, and indium tin oxide (ITO)), novel technologies such as semitransparent metallic mesh electrodes, poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)‐based electrodes, paper‐based electrodes, graphene electrodes, polymer composites with conducting fillers exhibit high transparency, conductivity, and mechanical compliancy, and they empower functionalities such as self‐healing . These electrode materials are particularly suitable for fabrication on a wide variety of soft substrates, including plastics (e.g., poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), polyethylene‐2,6‐naphthalate (PEN), parylene), elastomers (e.g., poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), polyimide (PI)), papers, and fiber (textiles) .…”

Reversible conductivity recovery of highly sensitive flexible devices by water vapor

“…16 Recently, metal-based fibers have attracted great attention on transparent electrodes, strain/pressure sensors, and heaters, because of their great potential for invisible integrated circuits and wearable sensing devices for e-skins etc. [19][20][21][22][23][24] However, highly conductive materials such as metal-based materials normally require ultra-high temperature or high-energy laser to reconstruct electrostatic interactions. 25,26 Therefore, capsule-based methods have been developed for fabrication of healable conducting materials, which use polymeric microcapsules as the healing agents and incorporated with conductive species.…”

“…For a couple decades, solution electrospinning provides a facile and versatile way to fabricate various functional fibers. 24,38 However, it is hard to control the pattern or the network architecture through solution electrospinning, which hinders its application on integrated devices. More recently, melt electrospinning writing (MEW), a combination of melt electrospinning and 3D-printing enables design and fabricate microfibers with controllable architectures.…”