Fabrication of Flexible and Transparent Metal Mesh Electrodes Using Surface Energy‐Directed Assembly Process for Touch Screen Panels and Heaters

Abstract

Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) are indispensable components of various optoelectronic devices such as displays, touch screen panels, solar cells, and smart windows. To date, the fabrication processes for metal mesh‐based TCEs are either costly or having limited resolution and throughput. Here, a two‐step surface energy‐directed assembly (SEDA) process to efficiently fabricate high resolution silver meshes is introduced. The two‐step SEDA process turns from assembly on a functionalized substrate with hydrophilic mesh patterns into assembly on a functionalized substrate with stripe patterns. During the SEDA process, a three‐phase contact line pins on the hydrophilic pattern regions while recedes on the hydrophobic non‐pattern regions, ensuring that the assembly process can be achieved with excellent selectivity. The necessity of using the two‐step SEDA process rather than a one‐step SEDA process is demonstrated by both experimental results and theoretical analysis. Utilizing the two‐step SEDA process, silver meshes with a line width down to 2 µm are assembled on both rigid and flexible substrates. The thickness of the silver meshes can be tuned by varying the withdraw speed and the assembly times. The assembled silver meshes exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties (sheet resistance of 1.79 Ω/□, optical transmittance of ≈92%, and a FoM value of 2465) as well as excellent mechanical stability. The applications of the assembled silver meshes in touch screen panels and thermal heaters are demonstrated, implying the potential of using the two‐step SEDA process for the fabrication of TCEs for optoelectronic applications.

Flexible transparent Ag NW micromesh electrode with enhanced electrical and thermal properties for multifunctional smart panel applications

“…Flexible transparent electronics have attracted tremendous interest because of their diverse applications such as wearable sensors, electrical heaters, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, thermochromic displays, and touch panels. [1][2][3][4] Integrating these multiple functions into a smart device is an important trend in this field to reduce product cost and circuit complexity, where high-performance flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) are one of the most vital components. Owing to the intrinsic poor mechanical flexibility and complex preparation process via magnetron sputtering, the market-dominant indium tin oxide (ITO) material cannot meet the potential applications of wearable electronics.…”

All-Solution-Processed Electronics with Sub-Microscale Resolution and Nanoscale Fidelity Fabricated Via a Humidity-Controlled, Surface Energy-Directed Assembly Process

“…Surface energy-directed assembly (SEDA) process, on the other hand, has potential to realize high resolution and high fidelity. , The SEDA process combines the solution coating methods (spin coating, dip coating, etc.) with substrate surface energy patterning.…”