Investigating the optical and electrical performance of rod coated silver nanowire-based transparent conducting films

Silver nanowires (Ag NWs) are highly promising building blocks for developing transparent conducting films (TCFs) due to their high electrical conductivity and good optical transparency. The large-scale production of Ag NW-based high-quality TCFs using low-cost processing methods can replace the traditional oxide based TCFs. Therefore, developing a reliable technique for large-scale fabrication of Ag NW-based TCFs is vital. This work involves the synthesis of Ag NWs, the fabrication of large-area Ag NW-based TCFs using a simple rod coating process, its optimization, and the performance analysis of the fabricated TCFs, including their demonstration as transparent heaters. The polyol synthesis method produces Ag NWs of lengths ranging from 25 - 110 μm and diameters from 80 - 180 nm. The effect of Ag NW length, the number of coating passes, and the volume of the NW dispersion used per coating pass on the electrical and optical properties of the TCFs are studied by quantifying sheet resistance (Rs) and transmittance (T) of the film. The performance of the fabricated film is evaluated by estimating the figure of merit (FoM) in both percolative and bulk regimes. The TCF made with NWs of length 25.7 μm and diameter 85.1 nm had the largest value of bulk FoM (101.3), percolative FoM (43.9), and, conductivity exponent (0.6). This elucidated the superior performance of the fabricated TCFs over those fabricated by other techniques. The critical thickness of the film (tmin), at the crossover between the percolation and bulk, scales with the shortest dimension of the NW, namely its diameter. The percolative FoM showed an increase, with a decrease in both sheet resistance and diameter of the NWs, with lower n. The fabricated TCF is tested as a transparent heater and the demonstration proves that rod coated Ag NW-based TCFs can be used for transparent electrode applications.