Novel Flexible Transparent Conductive Films with Enhanced Chemical and Electromechanical Sustainability: TiO Nanosheet-Ag Nanowire Hybrid.

Flexible transparent conductive films (TCFs) of TiO nanosheet (TiO NS) and silver nanowire (Ag NW) network hybrid were prepared through a simple and scalable solution-based process. The as-formed TiO NS-Ag NW hybrid TCF shows a high optical transmittance (TT: 97% (90.2% including plastic substrate)) and low sheet resistance (R: 40 Ω/sq). In addition, the TiO NS-Ag NW hybrid TCF exhibits a long-time chemical/aging and electromechanical stability. As for the chemical/aging stability, the hybrid TCF of Ag NW and TiO NS reveals a retained initial conductivity (ΔR/R < 1%) under ambient oxidant gas over a month, superior to that of bare Ag NW (ΔR/R > 4000%) or RuO NS-Ag NW hybrid (ΔR/R > 200%). As corroborated by the density functional theory simulation, the superb chemical stability of TiO NS-Ag NW hybrid is attributable to the unique role of TiO NS as a barrier, which prevents Ag NW's chemical corrosion via the attenuated adsorption of sulfidation molecules (HS) on TiO NS. With respect to the electromechanical stability, in contrast to Ag NWs (ΔR/R ∼ 152.9%), our hybrid TCF shows a limited increment of fractional resistivity (ΔR/R ∼ 14.4%) after 200 000 cycles of the 1R bending test (strain: 6.7%) owing to mechanically welded Ag NW networks by TiO NS. Overall, our unique hybrid of TiO NS and Ag NW exhibits excellent electrical/optical properties and reliable chemical/electromechanical stabilities.