A Flexible and Thin Graphene/Silver Nanowires/Polymer Hybrid Transparent Electrode for Optoelectronic Devices

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Nov 16;8(45):31212-31221. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b09056. Epub 2016 Nov 7.

Abstract

A typical thin and fully flexible hybrid electrode was developed by integrating the encapsulation of silver nanowires (AgNWs) network between a monolayer graphene and polymer film as a sandwich structure. Compared with the reported flexible electrodes based on PET or PEN substrate, this unique electrode exhibits the superior optoelectronic characteristics (sheet resistance of 8.06 Ω/□ at 88.3% light transmittance). Meanwhile, the specific up-to-bottom fabrication process could achieve the superflat surface (RMS = 2.58 nm), superthin thickness (∼8 μm thickness), high mechanical robustness, and lightweight. In addition, the strong corrosion resistance and stability for the hybrid electrode were proved. With these advantages, we employ this electrode to fabricate the simple flexible organic light-emitting device (OLED) and perovskite solar cell device (PSC), which exhibit the considerable performance (best PCE of OLED = 2.11 cd/A2; best PCE of PSC = 10.419%). All the characteristics of the unique hybrid electrode demonstrate its potential as a high-performance transparent electrode candidate for flexible optoelectronics.

Keywords: flexible transparent electrode; graphene; metal nanowires; sandwich; up-to-bottom.