Strongly adhesive and flexible transparent silver nanowire conductive films fabricated with a high-intensity pulsed light technique

Abstract

Large-scale silver nanowire (AgNW) mesh films have received increasing attention as new transparent conductive films used in various printed devices. However, there are two crucial issues in implementing AgNWs that need to be addressed: (1) strong adhesion between AgNW film and substrate and (2) high conductivity with short treatment time for low-cost printed technology. Here, a high-intensity pulsed light (HIPL) sintering technique, which provides extreme heating locally in the AgNW film and at the interface between the film and polymer substrate, sinters the AgNW film to produce high conductivity with strong adhesion on the substrate. Importantly, light intensity, exposure time, and AgNW amount can be adjusted simply to form films that meet specific device needs. A flexible AgNW film with sheet resistance of 19 U sq À1 and transmittance of 83% at 550 nm is obtained with only one-step on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate with a light intensity of 1.14 J cm À2 under an exposure time of only 50 ms. The film can endure multiple peeling tests, which will play an important role in printed electronics.

Facile fabrication of stretchable Ag nanowire/polyurethane electrodes using high intensity pulsed light

“…Moreover, the high temperature sintering required in these processes hinders the use of temperature-sensitive materials. Fortunately, a simpler and much faster technique called high-speed photonic sintering has paved the way to directly embed AgNWs in a matrix at room temperature [31][32][33]. Photonic sintering has been recently developed to replace conventional thermal sintering of metal nanoparticles, and works rapidly at room temperature on large scales through lightinduced heat generation in metallic nanostructures [31][32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

“…Fortunately, a simpler and much faster technique called high-speed photonic sintering has paved the way to directly embed AgNWs in a matrix at room temperature [31][32][33]. Photonic sintering has been recently developed to replace conventional thermal sintering of metal nanoparticles, and works rapidly at room temperature on large scales through lightinduced heat generation in metallic nanostructures [31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Jiu et al also found that the residual heat generated by photonic sintering in the metal network could be used to achieve strong adhesion between the network and a flexible substrate due to the deformation of the polymer substrates [31,32].…”

“…Photonic sintering has been recently developed to replace conventional thermal sintering of metal nanoparticles, and works rapidly at room temperature on large scales through lightinduced heat generation in metallic nanostructures [31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Jiu et al also found that the residual heat generated by photonic sintering in the metal network could be used to achieve strong adhesion between the network and a flexible substrate due to the deformation of the polymer substrates [31,32]. Provided that most of the stretchable devices are fabricated based on a polymer matrix, which can easily be deformed with heat, we believe photonic sintering is a potential candidate for the creation of a composite structure with stretchable substrates and metallic nanowires in a much simpler and faster manner.…”

Uniformly connected conductive networks on cellulose nanofiber paper for transparent paper electronics

“…However, AgNWs show poor adhesion to plastic films, 11 whereas CNTs show relatively strong adhesion. 16 Therefore, various techniques, including substrate surface modification, 12 encapsulation with a thin Teflon layer 13 and irradiation with highdensity pulsed light, 27 have been investigated. Despite these efforts, there is still a need for further progress in both coating processes and substrate materials to realize high transparent conductivity performance and strong adhesive properties simultaneously.…”

Joining of Individual Silver Nanowires via Electrical Current

“…4, but they appear before any current flow and remain unchanged after welding so are, therefore, not from electromigration. Several others have reported the existence of surface particles on silver nanowires synthesized by the polyol method [29,30], but their origin is still unclear at this time and requires further study.…”