Solid-state ionics method fabricated high aspect ratio silver nanowires: Application in transparent conductive films

Abstract Silver nanowires (AgNWs) with high aspect ratio were prepared by the solid-state ionics method using fast ionic conductor RbAg4I5 films under the different impressed currents and the corresponding transparent conductive films (TCFs) were prepared. The results indicate that the prepared AgNWs presented long-range order and short-range order and the average length of nanowires (NWs), which was approximately 400 μm, had no significant changes under different impressed currents. The best result of AgNWs-TCFs was the one with a transmittance of 87.3% at 550 nm accompanied with a low sheet resistance of 15.80 Ω/sq by controlling the drop-coating times, dispersant volume fraction and the impressed current intensity fixed at 2, 15% and 7 μA, respectively. The figure of merit for TCFs was 16.3, which is larger than the value of 8.8 for commercial indium tin oxide (ITO) films. These amazing results would render AgNWs-TCFs as a promising candidate to replace conventional ITO.