Extending electrical and optical performance of the prototype transparent electrode made by field-directed nanowire chaining

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Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) are used in solar to electrical energy conversion and more commonlyin smartphones and other touch screen display applications. There are few suitable TCE materials that affordthe transparency of glass as well as the high conductivity associated with metals. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is thebest known material. For large area devices, the high cost of these materials has led to a search for alternatives.Fine chains of sub-micron diameter wires (nanowires) on inexpensive non-conducting substrates such as glassor polymers can provide high electrical conductivity and high transparency. In our Nanoscale Transport,Mechanics and Materials (NTMM) Laboratory at the University of Victoria, we have demonstrated howelectric fields may be designed to create chains of fine (nanowires). Alternative techniques include spinning ordrop-casting nanowires from a liquid suspension, followed by drying and laser ablation. These techniques yieldsubstrates with less control of nanowire order and connectivity, and the use of ablation is wasteful, withpotential for risk of dispersion. Techniques that allow more ordered conductive materials are prohibitivelyexpensive for large-area use. We have demonstrated a prototype TCE made by electric-field-directed nanowirechaining. In this work, we propose to investigate designs that will yield the best figure of merit (highest opticaltransmittance to electrical conductance ratio). The effort to control connectivity and contact between thenanowire chains for best use of materials will be guided by our experiments and numerical simulations.