Transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) are an essential component of many electronic devices such as such as solar cells, touch screens, flat panel displays and OLEDs. Most TCEs use indium tin oxide (ITO) based electrodes which are optically transparent, electrically conductive and easily deposited as a film. ITO, however, has limited conductivity, possesses too high a cost for widespread commercialisation and shows limited longevity on polymer substrates. Metallic nanowires represent an interesting alternative to ITO. They combine several advantages such as high optical transparency, low sheet resistance and mechanical flexibility - a promising transparent conducting material for electrical and optical devices, particularly as flexible and conformal transparent electrodes. The stable nanowires project accessed the viability of implementing nanowire electrodes - identifying and addressing the challenges involved.
Project Objectives
- Develop and assess manufacturing approaches for creating metallic nanowire TCEs
- Approaches which enable enhanced conductivity and long-term environmental and electrical stability
Key Achievements
- Built upon an approach developed by Bangor University, depositing silver nanowires onto flexible substrates.
- Technique developed produces best sheet resistance and transparency performance of any transparent electrode material mentioned as an ITO replacement.
- Demonstrated that the electrodes can be integrated into functional organic and perovskite solar cells
For further details on a mixed nanowire approach, see: Kumar, D, Stoichkov, V, Ghosh, S, Smith, GC & Kettle, J 2017, 'Mixed-dimension silver nanowires for solution-processed, flexible, transparent and conducting electrodes with improved optical and physical properties' Flexible and Printed Electronics, vol 2, no. 1, 015005. DOI: 10.1088/2058-8585/aa6011
People
Dr Jeff Kettle
Dr Sanjay Ghosh
Dinesh Kumar
Other Pathfinders
SIMLIFT – Towards single micron LIFT technology
MFBBN – Multiphoton Fabrication of Bioelectronic Biomaterials for Neuromodulation
ITAPPE – Interconnection Technologies for integration of Active devices with Printed Plastic Electronics
IQ-PET – In-line Quality-control of UV offset lithographically Printed Electronic-ink by THz technology
LAFLEXEL – Laser Annealing for improved FLEXible Electronics
FlexEn – Flexible Printed Energy Storage
OPCAP – Offset lithographic printing of nanocomposite barium titanate capacitors
pNeuron – Printed Electronics for Neuromorphic Computing