Synthesis of Metal/Bimetal Nanowires and Their Applications as Flexible Transparent Electrodes

Abstract

As a potential alternative to indium oxide (ITO), metal nanowire transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) have attracted more and more attention. Here, a facile method that can be applied to the synthesis of a variety of metal/bimetallic nanowires has been proposed. Metal/bimetallic nanowires synthesized through this method show high aspect ratios and great dispersibility, which makes them ideal building blocks for transparent electrodes. The synthesis mechanism is discussed in-depth to give a theoretical basis of morphology control of metal nanostructures in organic synthesizing systems. TCEs with high flexibility, excellent optical-electrical performance as well as outstanding anti-thermal and anti-moisture stability are constructed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on synthesizing multiple metal/bimetallic nanowires through one method.

Keywords: flexible electrodes; metal nanowires; synthesis; transparent electrodes.