Developing a Simple, Effective, and Quick Process to Make Silver Nanowires with a High Aspect Ratio

Gharam A Alharshan; Mohamed A M Uosif; Rabeea D Abdel-Rahim; El Sayed Yousef; Essam Ramadan Shaaban; Adham M Nagiub

doi:10.3390/ma16155501

Developing a Simple, Effective, and Quick Process to Make Silver Nanowires with a High Aspect Ratio

Materials (Basel). 2023 Aug 7;16(15):5501. doi: 10.3390/ma16155501.

Authors

Gharam A Alharshan¹, Mohamed A M Uosif², Rabeea D Abdel-Rahim³, El Sayed Yousef^{4

5}, Essam Ramadan Shaaban⁶, Adham M Nagiub³

Affiliations

¹ Physics Department, College of Science, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia.
² Physics Department, College of Science, Jouf University, Sakaka P.O. Box 2014, Saudi Arabia.
³ Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assuit 71524, Egypt.
⁴ Research Center for Advanced Materials Science (RCAMS), King Khalid University, P.O. Box 9004, Abha 61413, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Physics Department, Faculty of Science, King Khalid University, P.O. Box 9004, Abha 61413, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assiut 71542, Egypt.

Abstract

A growing number of people are interested in using silver nanowires (AgNWs) as potential transparent and conductive materials. The production of high-performance and high-throughput AgNWs was successfully optimized in this work using a one-step, straightforward, and reproducible modified polyol approach. The factors influencing the morphology of the silver nanowires have undergone extensive research in order to determine the best-optimized approach for producing AgNWs. The best AgNW morphology, with a length of more than 50 m and a diameter of less than 35 nm (aspect ratio is higher than 1700), was discovered to be produced by a mixture of 44 mM AgNO₃, 134 mM polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) (Mo.Wt 40,000), and 2.4 mM KCl at 160 °C with a stirring rate of 100 rpm. With our improved approach, the overall reaction time was cut from almost an hour with the conventional polyol method to a few minutes. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopy were used to characterize AgNWs. The resultant AgNWs' dispersion was cleaned using a centrifuge multiple times before being deposited on glass and PET substrates at room temperature. In comparison to commercial, delicate, and pricey indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) substrates, the coated samples displayed exceptionally good sheet resistance of 17.05/sq and optical haze lower than 2.5%. Conclusions: Using a simple one-step modified polyol approach, we were able to produce reproducible thin sheets of AgNWs that made excellent, flexible transparent electrodes.

Keywords: flexible electrodes; polyol method; silver nanowires; transparent conductive electrode.

Grants and funding

The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University (KKU) for funding this research project Number (RGP2/431/44). Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Researchers Supporting Project number (PNURSP2023R173), Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.