One-step cost effective process of fabrication of a full inorganic nanostructured transparent conductive electrode and LC alignment layer has been developed. More specifically, the subject comprises a self-organized nanomesh of a valve metal, concomitant porous oxide layer with various functionality and electrochemical method of their fabrication. The nanomesh film is electrically conductive, optically transparent and flexible. It can be fabricated on a variety of substrates, including flexible and rigid substrates. High effective LC alignment layers based of nanostructured alumina can be fabricated at the same anodization process by special electro-chemical technique in sulfuric and oxalic acids to form a self ordered nanoporous structure of alumina which has a "vertical" surface area that prevails over the "horizontal" one even though Al film's thickness is small. The possibility to control distances between pores and their sizes during the process of anodizing/etching enables to optimize alignment surface according to the required LC material.

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Near-infrared transparent electrodes constitute an essential component of light-emitting and photovoltaic devices widely employed in short- and long-range communication, light detection and ranging, biodiagnostics, security, virtual and augmented reality, night vision, gas sensing, and solar cells. However, the efficiency of all these devices and related applications suffers from significantly reduced transmittance of the indium tin oxide electrode compared to the visible wavelength range. Here, we explore the potential of randomly and uniformly arranged silver, gold, and aluminum nanopore and nanowire films for the near-infrared optoelectronics. We show that these metallic nanopatterned layers, except for randomly arranged nanoporous configurations, exhibit considerably higher performance than the commonly used indium tin oxide. Furthermore, silver layers possess higher transmittance and lower haze than gold and aluminum ones, while the nanowire configuration overperforms the nanoporous one. The obtained results offer a means for deeper analysis of metallic nanopatterned transparent electrodes for many near-infrared optoelectronic applications.

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