Silver nanowires (AgNWs) with high aspect ratio were obtained utilizing a tapered tubular reactor by the polyol process. The tapered tubular type flow reactor allowed us to obtain nanowires in high yield without defects that is generally encountered in a closed reactor due to excessive shearing for a long time. After reaction the AgNWs were precipitated in the aqueous solution with the aid of a hydrogen bond breaker and were recovered effectively without using a high-cost centrifugation process. Dispersion of the AgNWs were used to prepare transparent conducting electrode (TCE) films by a spray coating method, which showed 86% transmittance and 90 Ωsq´1 sheet resistance.

Transparent conducting electrode film is highly desirable for application in touch screen panels (TSPs), flexible and wearable displays, sensors, and actuators. A sputtered film of indium tin oxide (ITO) shows high transmittance (90%) at low sheet resistance (50 Ω/cm 2 ). However, ITO films lack mechanical flexibility, especially under bending stress, and have limitation in application to large-area TSPs (over 15 inches) due to the trade-off in high transmittance and low sheet resistance properties. One promising solution is to use metal mesh-type transparent conducting film, especially for touch panel application. In this work, we investigated such inter-related issues as UV imprinting process to make a trench layer pattern, the synthesis of core-shell-type Ag and Cu@Ag composite nanoparticles and their paste formulation, the filling of Ag and Cu@Ag mixture nanoparticle paste to the trench layer, and touch panel fabrication processes.

How many times should we repeat measurements for ultrasound-guided attenuation parameter for evaluating hepatic steatosis?

Strain sensors for human-motion detection must offer high stretchability, high sensitivity, fast response, and high recovery speed. In this study, we choose silver paste as a sensing material and use a screen printing method to fabricate the strain sensor based upon an electrical-resistance mechanism. After curing elastomeric polyurethane film with a thickness of 150 µm on PET film, the polyester resin mixed with blocked isocyanate curing agent was coated as a masking layer to reduce the film's stickiness. The effect of the polyester masking layer upon the silver paste screen printing process was examined using a rolling-ball-tack test, TGA analysis of polyester resins, and cured silver-electrode films. The cost-effective strain sensor fabricated by using silver paste and screen printing processes on the stretchable-polyurethane-substrate film showed high sensitivity and fast response in a strain range of up to 100%.

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