Transparent conductors composed of nanomaterials

Abstract

This is a review on recent developments in the field of transparent conductive coatings (TCCs) for ITO replacement. The review describes the basic properties of conductive nanomaterials suitable for fabrication of such TCCs (metallic nanoparticles and nanowires, carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets), various methods of patterning the metal nanoparticles with formation of conductive transparent metallic grids, honeycomb structures and 2D arrays of interconnected rings as well as fabrication of TCCs based on graphene and carbon nanotubes. Applications of TCCs in electronic and optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells, electroluminescent and electrochromic devices, touch screens and displays, and transparent EMI shielders, are discussed.

Solution-Processed Graphene-Based Transparent Conductive Electrodes as Ideal ITO Alternatives for Organic Solar Cells

“…However, these metal oxides exhibit several issues due to the high cost, resulting mostly from the indium scarcity [19], their brittleness [20], the device degradation due to indium diffusion into the photoactive layer [21], and the requirement for high cost coating methods [20]. Significant effort toward the search of alternatives has therefore been motivated [15,[22][23][24] and several alternative materials have been proposed, including metallic nanowires (NWs), nanostructured carbon, and conductive polymers, among others [24,25]. Therefore, developing new materials combining most desirable properties for transparent electrodes will contribute to satisfy the increasing demand for lowcost solution-processed flexible devices.…”

Structural and Optical Properties of Spray Coated Carbon Hybrid Materials Applied to Transparent and Flexible Electrodes

“…Present paper is related to two kinds of carbon nanomaterials used as functional phases, graphene platelets (GNP) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNT); since they exhibit high mechanical strength [25][26][27] and can be used for transparent coatings [28][29][30], they have great electrical properties [31][32][33][34] and exhibit better performance than graphite based coatings 2 Journal of Nanomaterials which was described in our preliminary results [28]. Transparent electrodes should exhibit possibly the highest optical transmission and the lowest sheet resistance.…”

Alternative light therapy with luminescent textiles

“…One of the two electrodes must be transparent for the emission to pass through and is usually based on ITO on rigid and PEDOT:PSS on flexible materials. The second electrode preferably exhibits high conductivity and is often based on carbon or metal containing binder systems [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”