Sun Yongtao, Du Chaoping, Wu Muying, Zhao Le, Yu Shihui, Gong Baoming, Ding Qian
Department of Mechanics and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control, Tianjin University, Road Yaguan 135, Tianjin 300350, People's Republic of China.
Nanotechnology. 2020 Sep 11;31(37):375303. doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ab967b. Epub 2020 May 26.
Copper nanowires (CuNWs) are remarkable components that can replace indium tin oxide as transparent electrodes due to their low cost, high conductivity and acceptable transmittance. However, a common coating method can cause poor electrical, optical and adhesive properties because of the creation of loosely connected junctions. In addition, the unsatisfactory thermal and environmental stabilities limit the practical applications. These problems should be overcome in CuNW-based films for reliable transparent electrodes through material and engineering approaches. In this work, a novel transparent composite electrode composed of chitosan and CuNWs on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, with synchronously strengthened adhesion, as well as heightened transmittance, reduced resistivity, improved flexibility, enhanced thermal stability and increased environmental stability, was prepared without vacuum processing and high-temperature annealing. The effects of the number of CuNW network layers and chitosan concentration on the performance of chitosan/CuNW composite transparent electrodes were studied. The resulting electrodes exhibitan excellent conductivity (sheet resistance: 15.6 Ω sq) and a superior optical transmittance (∼87%) at 550 nm. Calculation of the figure of merit displays a high value of 168, which is the highest among all the reported CuNW-based transparent electrodes. Meanwhile, the sheet resistance did not show great change after 10 tape tests and 10 000 bending cycles, suggesting good adhesion to the PET substrate and outstanding mechanical flexibility. Moreover, the composite transparent electrodes show good stability to resist long-term storage and temperature variation in thermal environment.
铜纳米线（CuNWs）是一种卓越的组件，因其低成本、高导电性和可接受的透光率，可替代氧化铟锡作为透明电极。然而，一种常见的涂层方法会由于形成连接松散的结而导致电、光和粘附性能不佳。此外，热稳定性和环境稳定性不令人满意限制了实际应用。对于基于CuNW的可靠透明电极薄膜，应通过材料和工程方法克服这些问题。在这项工作中，在柔性聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）基板上制备了一种由壳聚糖和CuNWs组成的新型透明复合电极，该电极具有同步增强的附着力、提高的透光率、降低的电阻率、改善的柔韧性、增强的热稳定性和提高的环境稳定性，无需真空处理和高温退火。研究了CuNW网络层数和壳聚糖浓度对壳聚糖/CuNW复合透明电极性能的影响。所得电极在550nm处表现出优异的导电性（方块电阻：15.6Ω/sq）和卓越的光学透光率（约87%）。品质因数的计算显示出168的高值，这是所有报道的基于CuNW的透明电极中最高的。同时，经过10次胶带测试和10000次弯曲循环后，方块电阻没有显示出很大变化，表明对PET基板具有良好的附着力和出色的机械柔韧性。此外，复合透明电极在抵抗长期储存和热环境中的温度变化方面表现出良好的稳定性。
