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High Performance and Flexible Electrodeposited Silver Mesh Transparent Conducting Electrodes Based on a Self-Cracking Template

  • Original Article - Electronics, Magnetics and Photonics
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Abstract

Metal network based transparent conducting electrodes are essential for the future optoelectronic devices due to their mechanical flexibility and compatible with large-scale manufacturing. In this report, we investigated the morphological, optical, electrical, and flexible properties of an electrodeposited silver (Ag) mesh transparent conducting electrodes based on a self-cracking template. An overly coated Ag mesh (ED-TE Ag mesh) was prepared onto glass and PET substrates by the sequential deposition steps including thermal evaporation and electroplating methods. The self-cracking template was lift-off prior to the over coating of Ag by the electrodeposition step. The surface morphologies of ED-TE Ag meshes are smooth and well interconnected. The Ag mesh thickness and line width are typically increased with the electroplating time from 0 s to 30 s. The ED-TE Ag mesh shows higher optoelectronic performance with a larger figure of merit (2827 (Ω/sq)−1) than the individual evaporated Ag mesh (756 (Ω/sq)−1) and the ITO film (311 (Ω/sq)−1). Moreover, the low sheet resistance (1.01 Ω/sq) of the ED-TE Ag mesh is observed at 30 s. The ED-TE Ag mesh exhibits almost stable resistance to both concave and convex bending tests, even at a smaller radius of curvature (<2 mm). Thus, these electrodes are more suitable for many flexible device applications like solar cells, displays, etc.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the framework of the Research and Development Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER C2-2401-01), the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) that is funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (Grant No. NRF-2021R1A2C1005815), and Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE) (2021RIS-004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, Hanbat National University, Daejeon, 34158, Republic of Korea

    Seoin Kang, Eunyeong Yang & Choong-Heui Chung

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Hanbat National University, Daejeon, 34158, Republic of Korea

    Vinaya Kumar Arepalli, Sangyeob Lee, Jung-Sub Wi & Choong-Heui Chung

  3. Department of Energy Engineering, Korea Institute of Energy Technology, Naju, Jeonnam, 58330, Republic of Korea

    Jae Ho Yun

  4. Photovoltaics Research Department, Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), Daejeon, 34129, Republic of Korea

    Soomin Song, Kihwan Kim, Young-Joo Eo, Jun-Sik Cho & Jihye Gwak

  5. Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology (UST), Daejeon, 34113, Republic of Korea

    Kihwan Kim, Young-Joo Eo, Jun-Sik Cho & Jihye Gwak

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  1. Seoin Kang
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Correspondence to Jihye Gwak or Choong-Heui Chung.

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Kang, S., Arepalli, V.K., Yang, E. et al. High Performance and Flexible Electrodeposited Silver Mesh Transparent Conducting Electrodes Based on a Self-Cracking Template. Electron. Mater. Lett. 18, 440–446 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-022-00358-4

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