A Deformable and Highly Robust Ethyl Cellulose Transparent Conductor with a Scalable Silver Nanowires Bundle Micromesh

Abstract

Huge challenges remain regarding the facile fabrication of neat metallic nanowires mesh for high-quality transparent conductors (TCs). Here, a scalable metallic nanowires bundle micromesh is achieved readily by a spray-assisted self-assembly process, resulting in a conducting mesh with controllable ring size (4-45 µm) that can be easily realized on optional polymer substrates, rendering it transferable to various deformable and transparent substrates. The resultant conductors with the embedded nanowires bundle micromesh deliver superior and customizable optoelectronic performances, and can sustain various mechanical deformations, environmental exposure, and severe washing, exhibiting feasibility for large-scale manufacturing. The silver nanowires bundle micromesh with explicit conductive paths is embedded into an ethyl cellulose (EC) transparent substrate to achieve superior optoelectronic properties endowed by a low amount of incorporated nanowires, which leads to reduced extinction cross-section as verified by optical simulation. A representative EC conductor with a low sheet resistance of 25 Ω □ , ultrahigh transmittance of 97%, and low haze of 2.6% is attained, with extreme deformability (internal bending radius of 5 µm) and waterproofing properties, opening up new possibilities for low-cost and scalable TCs to replace indium-tin oxide (ITO) for future flexible electronics, as demonstrated in a capacitive touch panel in this work.

Aligned Silver Nanowires Enabled Highly Stretchable and Transparent Electrodes with Unusual Conductive Property

“…a) Sheet resistance, stretchability, and optical transmittance at 550 nm for oriented AgNWs electrodes with previously reported electrodes including AgNWs, AgNWs@graphene, Ag mesh, Ag nanofiber, Au–Ag core–shell nanowires, CuNWs, Cu@Cu 4 Ni, CNT, CNT mesh, CNT embroidered graphene, graphene, Au nanotrough, Au nanomesh, and CuZr nanotrough . for comparison.…”

“…The commonly used conductive materials are conductive transparent ceramic including indium tin oxide, fluorine‐doped tin oxide, and aluminum‐doped zinc oxide, which are severely limited by their intrinsic fracture characteristic, lack of resources, and harsh processing conditions. As such, a variety of conductive films with mechanical stretchability and optical transparency, such as metal nanowires, alloyed metal nanowires, carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene, conducting polymers, and hybrids of metal nanowires and graphene have been fabricated. Among these stretchable transparent conductive materials, metal nanowires‐based electrodes are intensively investigated because of the easy fabrication process and excellent electrical conductivity.…”

Progress on wearable triboelectric nanogenerators in shapes of fiber, yarn, and textile

“…A fabric electrode with silver flakes and PDMS binder was employed to achieve the stretchability and breathability of the device. A waterproof textile with a transparent coating of cellulose-derived hydrophobic nanoparticles (HCOENPs) was applied to encapsulate the whole device for the water repellency and washability [104]. HCOENPs have no effect on the color of textile, showing the potential of cellulose materials for flexible electronics [105].…”

Reconfigurable and programmable origami dielectric elastomer actuators with 3D shape morphing and emissive architectures

“…In this study, we demonstrate that by employing the origami principle, a programmable and reconfigurable transparent unimorph actuator can be achieved by integrating origami ethyl cellulose (EC) paper with DEAs. EC paper possesses the advantages of high transparency, excellent flexibility and foldability, and robust mechanical endurance 31 . Outof-plane and alterable shape changes can be programmed in the DEA devices by creating reconfigurable crease patterns.…”