Fabrication, Mechanisms, and Properties of High-Performance Flexible Transparent Conductive Gas-Barrier Films Based on Ag Nanowires and Atomic Layer Deposition

Abstract

Thin films of Ag nanowires (NWs) offer many advantages as transparent electrodes for flexible electronics, but their applications are hindered by issues including poor stability/durability of Ag NWs, high processing temperatures, heterogeneity of surfaces, and lack of gas-barrier function. This study reports novel mechanisms through which a conductive Hf:ZnO (HZO) film by atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be integrated with a sprayed Ag NWs film to address the issues of Ag NWs. First, the ALD surface reactions can induce fusing of the Ag NWs into a connected network without the need for a thermal sintering process. Second, the ALD process can in situ functionalize the Ag NWs to yield defect-free (in terms of blocking gas permeation) coverage of the ALD HZO over the entire nanowire surfaces, which also enhances the ALD-induced fusing of Ag NWs. The composite HZO/Ag NWs films exhibit low sheet resistance (15 Ω sq–1), low water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) (5.1 × 10–6 g m–2 day–1), high optical transmission (92%), excellent flexibility (12.5 mm bending radius), high stability/durability (against an extensive set of degradation modes and photolithographic patterning processes), and low processing temperature (90 °C) and can be used in perovskite solar cells to obtain high power conversion efficiency (14.46%).

Barrier Designs in Perovskite Solar Cells for Long‐Term Stability

“…Their devices retained >90% of its initial PCE after storing in ambient air for 600 h. [206] Recently, various compact ALD-based inorganic ETL barriers, like ALD-aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO), ALD-SnO x layers, ALD-TiO 2 , and ALD-VO x etc., have also been developed by depositing on top of the PCBM/BCP ETLs/buffer layers to enlarge the protection of perovskite layer and PSCs against attacks. [207][208][209][210][211][212][213][214] Yu et al deposited an ALD-AZO layer upon PCBM, which also could dramatically improve the resistance of perovskite films against moisture and even maintained the original color for >20 min after dropping water droplets. [208] Seo et al used a low-temperature ALD method to deposit an AZO barrier at the interface between the PCBM/BCP layer and the electrode (Figure 9a).…”

Gas permeation and microstructure of reduced graphene oxide/polyethyleneimine multilayer films createdviarecast and layer-by-layer deposition processes

“…1 Over years, packaging lms designed to protect these items from reactive gases and water molecules have attracted strong scientic and technological interest. [2][3][4] Many barrier solutions have been successfully developed in the past 20-30 years, including metallized plastic lms, 5 SiO x , 6,7 and composite lms. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Most inorganic lms show excellent intrinsic barrier behavior, but many of them tend to be compromised by pinholes or defects aer being bent or stretched.…”

“…[2][3][4] Many barrier solutions have been successfully developed in the past 20-30 years, including metallized plastic lms, 5 SiO x , 6,7 and composite lms. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Most inorganic lms show excellent intrinsic barrier behavior, but many of them tend to be compromised by pinholes or defects aer being bent or stretched. [5][6][7][8] Polymer-based barrier lms are more exible and have better mechanical properties, but their microstructure and barrier property are sensitive to the external environment, resulting in degradation over time.…”

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Most inorganic lms show excellent intrinsic barrier behavior, but many of them tend to be compromised by pinholes or defects aer being bent or stretched. [5][6][7][8] Polymer-based barrier lms are more exible and have better mechanical properties, but their microstructure and barrier property are sensitive to the external environment, resulting in degradation over time. [9][10][11] More recently, twodimensional inorganic plates/polymer composite lms have attracted much attention.…”

Understanding of the Mechanism for Laser Ablation-Assisted Patterning of Graphene/ITO Double Layers: Role of Effective Thermal Energy Transfer

“…For the fabrication of transparent electronic devices, such as touchscreen panels (TSPs) and flat-panel displays (FPDs), it is essential to develop transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) with high transmittance and low resistivity. Although indium tin oxide (ITO) has been mainly applied as a typical material for TCEs in electronic devices because of its high figure of merit and good compatibility with conventional semiconductor-processing technology [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], the demand for developing new TCE materials with better conductivity has been soaring as the sizes of TSPs and FPDs increase continuously [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”