An antireflection transparent conductor with ultralow optical loss (<2 %) and electrical resistance (<6 Ω sq-1).

Transparent conductors are essential in many optoelectronic devices, such as displays, smart windows, light-emitting diodes and solar cells. Here we demonstrate a transparent conductor with optical loss of ∼1.6%, that is, even lower than that of single-layer graphene (2.3%), and transmission higher than 98% over the visible wavelength range. This was possible by an optimized antireflection design consisting in applying Al-doped ZnO and TiO2 layers with precise thicknesses to a highly conductive Ag ultrathin film. The proposed multilayer structure also possesses a low electrical resistance (5.75 Ω sq-1), a figure of merit four times larger than that of indium tin oxide, the most widely used transparent conductor today, and, contrary to it, is mechanically flexible and room temperature deposited. To assess the application potentials, transparent shielding of radiofrequency and microwave interference signals with ∼30 dB attenuation up to 18 GHz was achieved.

An indium tin oxide-free polymer solar cell on flexible glass.

Future optoelectronic devices and their low-cost roll-to-roll production require mechanically flexible transparent electrodes (TEs) and substrate materials. Indium tin oxide (ITO) is the most widely used TE because of its high optical transmission and low electrical sheet resistance. However, ITO, besides being expensive, has very poor performance under mechanical stress because of its fragile oxide nature. Alternative TE materials have thus been sought. Here we report the development of a multilayer TiO2/Ag/Al-doped ZnO TE structure and an ITO-free polymer solar cell (PSC) incorporating it. Electro-optical performances close to those of ITO can be achieved for the proposed TE and corresponding PSC with an additional advantage in their mechanical flexibility, as demonstrated by the fact that the cell efficiency maintains 94% of its initial value (6.6%) after 400 cycles of bending, with 6 and 3 cm maximum and minimum radii, respectively. Instead of common plastic materials, our work uses a very thin (0.14 mm) flexible glass substrate with several benefits, such as the possibility of high-temperature processes, superior antipermeation properties against oxygen and moisture, and improved film adhesion.

Ultrathin transparent conductive polyimide foil embedding silver nanowires.

Metallic nanowires are among the most promising transparent conductor (TC) alternatives to widely used indium tin oxide (ITO) because of their excellent trade-off between electrical and optical properties, together with their mechanical flexibility. However, they tend to suffer from relatively large surface roughness, instability against oxidation, and poor adhesion to the substrate. Embedding in a suitable material can overcome these shortcomings. Here we propose and demonstrate a new TC comprising silver nanowires (AgNWs) in an ultrathin polyimide foil that presents an optical transmission in the visible larger than ITO (>90%), while maintaining similar electrical sheet resistance (15 ohm/sq). The polyimide protects the Ag against environmental agents such as oxygen and water and, thanks to its deformability and very small thickness (5 µm), provides an ideal mechanical support to the NW's network, in this way ensuring extreme flexibility (bending radius as small as at least 1 mm) and straightforwardly removing any adhesion issue. The initial AgNWs' roughness is also reduced by a factor of about 15, reaching RMS values as low as 2.4 nm, suitable for the majority of applications. All these properties together with the simple fabrication technique based on all-solution processing put the developed TC in a competitive position as a lightweight, mechanically flexible and inexpensive substrate for consumer electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Hybrid transparent conductive film on flexible glass formed by hot-pressing graphene on a silver nanowire mesh.

Polycrystalline graphene and metallic nanowires (NWs) have been proposed to replace indium tin oxide (ITO), the most widely used transparent electrode (TE) film on the market. However, the trade-off between optical transparency (Topt) and electrical sheet resistance (Rs) of these materials taken alone makes them difficult to compete with ITO. In this paper, we show that, by hot-press transfer of graphene monolayer on Ag NWs, the resulting combined structure benefits from the synergy of the two materials, giving a Topt-Rs trade-off better than that expected by simply adding the single material contributions Ag NWs bridge any interruption in transferred graphene, while graphene lowers the contact resistance among neighboring NWs and provides local conductivity in the uncovered regions in-between NWs. The hot-pressing not only allows graphene transfer but also compacts the NWs joints, thus reducing contact resistance. The dependence on the initial NW concentration of the effects produced by the hot press process on its own and the graphene transfer using hot press was investigated and indicates that a low concentration is more suitable for the proposed geometry. A TE film with Topt of 90% and Rs of 14 Ω/sq is demonstrated, also on a flexible glass substrate about 140 µm thick, a very attractive platform for efficient flexible electronic and photonic devices.

Ultrastable and atomically smooth ultrathin silver films grown on a copper seed layer.

An effective method to deposit atomically smooth ultrathin silver (Ag) films by employing a 1 nm copper (Cu) seed layer is reported. The inclusion of the Cu seed layer leads to the deposition of films with extremely low surface roughness (<0.5 nm), while it also reduces the minimum thickness required to obtain a continuous Ag film (percolation thickness) to 3 nm compared to 6 nm without the seed layer. Moreover, the Cu seed layer alters the growth mechanism of the Ag film by providing energetically favorable nucleation sites for the incoming Ag atoms leading to an improved surface morphology and concomitant lower electrical sheet resistance. Optical measurements together with X-ray diffraction and electrical resistivity measurements confirmed that the Ag film undergoes a layer-by-layer growth mode resulting in a smaller grain size. The Cu seeded Ag growth method provides a feasible way to deposit ultrathin Ag films for nanoscale electronic, plasmonic and photonic applications. In addition, as a result of the improved uniformity, the oxidation of the Ag layer is strongly reduced to negligible values.