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

透明导电电极(Tce)用于太阳能到电能的转换，更常见的是用于智能手机和其他触摸屏显示器应用。很少有合适的三氯乙烯材料能够提供玻璃的透明度以及金属的高导电性。铟锡氧化物(ITO)是最著名的材料。对于大面积器件，这些材料的高成本促使人们寻找替代材料。在廉价的非导电基板上，如玻璃聚合物，由直径为亚微米的细线(纳米线)组成的细链可以提供高导电性和高透明度。在维多利亚大学的纳米级运输、机械和材料(NTMM)实验室中，我们演示了如何设计电场来产生细链(纳米线)。替代技术包括从液体悬浮液中纺丝、浇注纳米线，然后烘干和激光烧蚀。这些技术产生的衬底对纳米线顺序和连接性的控制较少，使用烧蚀是浪费的，具有分散的潜在风险。允许更有序的导电材料的技术对于大面积使用来说是昂贵的。我们已经展示了一个由电场定向纳米链制备的TCE原型。在这项工作中，我们建议研究将产生最佳品质因数(最高光学透过率与电导比)的设计。为了更好地利用材料，我们将通过我们的实验和数值模拟来控制钢丝链之间的连通性和接触。

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.