Fused silver nanowires with silica sol nanoparticles for smooth, flexible, electrically conductive and highly stable transparent electrodes.

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) thin films have emerged as promising next-generation transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs), and increasing the opto-electrical properties and long-term stability of AgNWs based TCEs is now a major research focus. In this work, a smooth, flexible, electrically conductive and highly stable transparent AgNWs-silica nanoparticles composite TCE has been successfully manufactured coating an aqueous AgNWs-silica sol composite conductive ink on a PET substrate through the Mayer rod method. The effects of particle size and concentration of silica sol on the smoothness, opto-electrical properties and stability of AgNWs based TCEs were investigated in detail, and the mechanisms of the decoration of AgNWs by silica sol nanoparticles and welding of the network junction are discussed briefly. The TCE based on AgNWs reinforced with 50 nm silica nanoparticles (80 ppm concentration of silica sol) possesses a smooth surface with an RMS value of 9.45 nm, and superior opto-electrical properties with a sheet resistance of 28 Ω sq and a transmittance of 97%. The resistance of the resultant AgNWs-silica composite TCE remains nearly constant after bending for 1000 cycles or exposure to NaS solution for 300 s, indicating high stability. The newly designed AgNWs-silica composite TCE is a promising flexible and transparent electrode to be applied in next-generation flexible electronic devices.