Applications of Carbon Nanotubes to Flexible Transparent Conductive Electrodes

Abstract

Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) have attracted great interest because of their wide range of applications in solar cells, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), organic lightemitting diodes (OLEDs), and touch screen panels (TSPs). Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) thin films as TCEs possess exceptional optoelectronic properties, but they have several disadvantages such as a brittle nature due to their low fracture strain and lack of flexibility, a high processing temperature that damages the flexible substrates, low adhesion to polymeric materials, and relative rarity on Earth, which makes their price unstable. This has motivated several research studies of late for developing alternative materials to replace ITO such as metal meshes, metal nanowires, conductive polymers, graphene, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Out of the abovementioned candidates, CNTs have advantages in chemical stability, thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and flexibility. However, there are still several problems yet to be solved for achieving CNT-based flexible TCEs with excellent characteristics and high stability. In this chapter, the properties of CNTs and their applications especially for flexible TCEs are presented, including the preparation details of CNTs based on solution processes, the surface modification of flexible substrates, and the various types of hybrid TCEs based on CNTs.

Modification of Silver Nanowire Coatings with Intense Pulsed Ion Beam for Transparent Heaters

“…However, ITO application is limited by the high fabrication cost, while its brittleness makes it unsuitable for flexible electronics. Various alternative materials, such as carbon nanotubes [4,5], graphene [6,7], conductive polymers [8,9], and metallic nanowires [10,11] are being explored, among which silver nanowires (AgNWs) have attracted special attention because of their high electrical conductivity, high transparency, and excellent mechanical properties [1][2][3][12][13][14]. The most commonly used method of AgNWs synthesis is the polyol method, which is a simple, yet highly controllable liquid-phase process that does not require expensive equipment [15][16][17][18].…”