posted on 2021-05-04, 19:37authored byZiyu Zhou, S. Brett Walker, Melbs LeMieux, Paul W. Leu
We
report on the fabrication and characterization of polymer-embedded
silver (Ag) microgrid structures using a particle-free reactive Ag
ink for flexible high-performance transparent conductive electrodes.
The Ag microgrids are cured at low temperatures and embedded directly
into flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films to create structures
needed for high transparency and low sheet resistance. The conductive
grids demonstrate 91.8% transmission and a sheet resistance of 0.88
Ω/sq corresponding to an optical conductivity ratio σdc/σop of nearly 4500 with gridlines of 10
μm width. The microgrids may be fabricated with gridlines down
to 3.5 μm width. The fabrication of microgrids from a particle-free
reactive ink results in several enhancements compared to microgrids
fabricated from particle-based conductive Ag inks. The use of particle-free
ink offers about 2.5 times higher conductivity, over 3 times lower
surface roughness, and better stability under mechanical adhesion,
bending, and folding tests. Our results demonstrate the following:
(1) a scalable approach to microgrid manufacturing, (2) microgrids
with nearly the best transparent electrode performance properties,
and (3) the clear benefit of the paradigm of particle-free conductive
inks compared to conventional nanoparticle inks.