title: Very long Ag nanowire synthesis and its application in a highly transparent, conductive and flexible metal electrode touch panel.
abstract: The future electronics will be soft, flexible and even stretchable to be more human friendly in the form of wearable computers. However, conventional electronic materials are usually brittle. Recently, carbon based materials are intensively investigated as a good candidate for flexible electronics but with limited mechanical and electrical performances. Metal is still the best material for electronics with great electrical properties but with poor transparency and mechanical performance. Here we present a simple approach to develop a synthesis method for very long metallic nanowires and apply them as new types of high performance flexible and transparent metal conductors as an alternative to carbon nanotubes, graphene and short nanowire based flexible transparent conductors and indium tin oxide based brittle transparent conductors. We found that very long metallic nanowire network conductors combined with a low temperature laser nano-welding process enabled superior transparent flexible conductors with high transmittance and high electrical conductivity. Further, we demonstrated highly flexible metal conductor LED circuits and transparent touch panels. The highly flexible and transparent metal conductors can be mounted on any non-planar surfaces and applied for various opto-electronics and ultimately for future wearable electronics.
authors.affiliation: Applied Nano Technology and Science (ANTS) Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea.
authors.forename: Jinhwan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Phillip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Hyungman
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Dongjin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Seung Seob
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Seung Hwan
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Ko
mesh_terms: D004553:Electric Conductivity; D055615:Electrical Equipment and Supplies; D004566:Electrodes; D004867:Equipment Design; D049329:Nanostructures; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012834:Silver