Gui-Shi Liu

Microchannel Wetting for Controllable Patterning and Alignment of Silver Nanowire with High Resolution.

Patterning and alignment of conductive nanowires are essential for good electrical isolation and high conductivity in various applications. Herein a facile bottom-up, additive technique is developed to pattern and align silver nanowires (AgNWs) by manipulating wetting of dispersions in microchannels. By forming hydrophobic/hydrophilic micropatterns down to 8 μm with fluoropolymer (Cytop) and SiO2, the aqueous AgNW dispersions with the optimized surface tension and viscosity self-assemble into microdroplets and then dry to form anisotropic AgNW networks. The alignment degree characterized by the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) can be well-controlled from 39.8° to 84.1° by changing the width of microchannels. A mechanism is proposed and validated by statistical analysis on AgNW alignment, and a static model is proposed to guide the patterning of general NWs. The alignment reduced well the electrical resistivity of AgNW networks by a factor of 5 because of the formation of efficient percolation path for carrier conduction.

Fabrication of Embedded Silver Nanowires on Arbitrary Substrates with Enhanced Stability via Chemisorbed Alkanethiolate

We propose a versatile yet practical transferring technique to fabricate a high performance and extremely stable silver nanowire (AgNW) transparent electrode on arbitrary substrates. Hydroxylated poly(ethylene glycol) terephthalate (PET) or poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) deposited with AgNWs was selectively decorated to lower its polar surface energy, so that the AgNWs were easily and efficiently transferred into an epoxy resin (EPR) as a freestanding film (AgNWs-EPR) or onto various substrates. The AgNWs-EPR capped with alkanethiolate monolayers exhibits high conductivity, low roughness, ultraflexibility, and strong corrosion resistance. Using the transferring process, AgNWs-EPR was successfully constructed on rough, adhesive, flimsy, or complex curved substrates, including PET, thin optically clear adhesive, papers, a beaker, convex spherical PDMS, and leaves. A flexible touch panel enabling multitouch and a curved transparent heater on a beaker were first fabricated by using the composite film. These demonstrations suggest that the proposed technique for AgNWs is a promising strategy toward the next generation of flexible/portable/wearable electronics.

Hybrid Effect of Crossed Alignment and Multi-Stacking Structure on the Percolation Behavior of Silver Nanowire Networks

Owing to the superiority of being flexible, highly conductive, and extremely transparent, silver nanowire (AgNW) has been regarded as a possible candidate to replace indium-tin-oxide (ITO) for flexible transparent conductive films (TCFs), flexible electronics, and flexible display applications. To make TCFs with lower sheet resistance ( Rs), but without sacrificing the optical transmittance, the deployment of AgNWs is very critical. A crossed-alignment method along with multi-stacking structure was proposed to lower the percolative threshold, which thus can decrease the R s by a factor of more than two, in the premise of not affecting the optical transmittance.

Tape-Based Photodetector: Transfer Process and Persistent Photoconductivity

We report a facile transfer method to fabricate flexible photodetectors directly on tape, wherein the films formed by different processes were integrated together. The tape-based photodetectors with CdS nanowire (NW) active layers exhibited good performances as those fabricated by conventional processes. The obvious persistent photocurrent in our device was eliminated by introducing a conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) onto the CdS NW layer. By adjusting the concentration of the PEDOT:PSS aqueous solution, a device with a fast response, ultrashort decay time, and relatively large photocurrent was obtained. The decay times were 11.59 and 6.64 ms for devices using electrodes of silver NWs and gold, respectively. These values are much shorter than the shortest decay times (on the order of hundreds of milliseconds) reported previously.

Comprehensive Stability Improvement of Silver Nanowire Networks via Self-Assembled Mercapto Inhibitors

Instability of silver nanowire (AgNW) has been regarded as a major obstacle to its practical applications in optoelectrical devices as transparent electrodes. Physical barrier layers such as polymer, metal, and graphene have been generally employed to improve the stability of AgNW in previous study. Herein, we first report self-assembled organothiols as an inhibitor for AgNW to achieve an overall enhancement in antioxidation, antisulfidation, thermal stability, and anti-electromigration. The self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of phenyl azoles, methoxy silane, and methyl alkane were formed on the surface of AgNW via Ag-S covalent bond as barrier layers which provided protective effects against corrosives (e.g., O2, H2S). In particular, the decoration of 2-mercaptobenzimidazole (MBI) offered the best resistance to H2S and excellent stability under a high-temperature and high-humidity environment (85 °C and 85 RH %) for 4 months. Moreover, different SAMs exhibited a stabilizing or destabilizing effect on Plateau-Rayleigh instability of AgNW, which realized the tunability of degradation temperature of AgNWs, for example, increasing by ≥100 °C with MBI SAM or decreasing by ∼50 °C with octadecanethiol SAM compared with pristine AgNWs. Notably, the MBI-decorated AgNWs could survive at 400 °C which is by far the highest bearing temperature for solution-processed AgNW film. As a result, a transparent heater made of the MBI-AgNWs exhibited superior heating characteristics (higher working temperature and durability), as compared with the pristine AgNW-based heater. Our findings on the organothiols decoration not only provide a new paradigm in overall stability improvement of NW of noble metals but also show the potential in morphology controllability of metal NW.

Chitosan-assisted buffer layer incorporated with hydroxypropyl methylcellulose-coated silver nanowires for paper-based sensors

Fabricating flexible sensors on paper is intriguing. Here, we exploited chitosan as a buffer layer to facilitate the fabrication of silver nanowire (AgNW) networks and flexible devices on commercial paper. We found that the AgNW networks exhibited uniform distribution, smooth surface, and strong adhesion. The enhanced adhesion of AgNWs was attributed to the intermolecular hydrogen bonding between chitosan and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), which can be tailored by tuning the pH of the chitosan aqueous solution. This facile fabrication method utilizing biodegradable polymers and cost-effective AgNW ink holds great promise for portable, wearable, and disposable paper-based electronics.

Stability enhancement of silver nanowire patterns by transferring process

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) need to be patterned for using as transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) in most electronic devices. Herein we propose a versatile technique which can fabricate AgNW patterns with enhanced adhesion to the substrate of polyethylene glycol terephthalate (PET). By using spin-coating, AgNWs were self-assembled into patterns on the surface of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) which had been patterned with high contrast of wettability by UV/O3 exposure. To enhance the adhesion of AgNWs to substrate, the patterned AgNWs were embedded into epoxy resin (EPR) by a facile transferring process. The key to this process is the anti-adhesive groups (CH3) grafted on the oxidized PDMS to assist a clean exfoliation. The AgNW-EPR composite electrode exhibits excellent stability under adhesive tape test and long-term storage.

Selective deposition of silver nanowires and its application for wearable pressure sensor

Wearable, highly sensitive, and low-cost pressure sensors are desirable in the field of electronic skin. Here we report a solution-processed fabrication strategy to construct a highly sensitive, flexible pressure sensor by laminating silver nanowire (AgNW) patterns/Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer and poly(3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS)-/PDMS layer with micro-structure. The AgNWs with interdigitated pattern, as an electrode, was fabricated by a wetting/dewetting process. The micro-structure of the PEDOT:PSS/PDMS layer was replicated from a sandpaper. The sensors are able to detect the pressure as low as 100 Pa with large pressure region (up to 140 kPa) and fast response time (<40 ms).

Enhancement of polar phases in PVDF by forming PVDF/SiC nanowire composite

Different contents of silicon carbide (SiC) nanowires were mixed with Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) to facilitate the polar phase crystallization. It was shown that the annealing temperature and SiC content affected on the phase and crystalline structures of PVDF/SiC samples. Furthermore, the addition of SiC nanowire enhanced the transformation of non-polar α phase to polar phases and increased the relative fraction of β phase in PVDF. Due to the nucleating agent mechanism of SiC nanowires, the ion-dipole interaction between the negatively charged surface of SiC nanowires and the positive CH2 groups in PVDF facilitated the formation of polar phases in PVDF.