Highly reliable flexible transparent conductors prepared with Cu/Ni grid by vacuum-free solution process

Abstract In this work, Highly reliable and high-performance metal-mesh network transparent conductive film (TCF) is fabricated on flexible substrate by lithography and electroplating without high temperature which combines the advantages of both approaches, exhibiting enhanced adhesion, improved thermostability and reduced resistivity. The Cu/Ni/PEDOT:PSS (CNP) TCF with a sheet resistance of ~0.13 Ω/sq at transmittance of ~86% has a high figure of merit (FoM) up to 17,000. The fabricated CNP shows enhanced adhesion to polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates, and the sheet resistance does not show great change after the bending test and folding cycle tests, which attributes to the protection of the PEDOT:PSS. Moreover, the CNP film displays excellent stability that the sheet resistance does not show great increase after several months at room temperature and maintain original resistance at high temperature (150 °C). According to Joule heating, a visible transparent heater is fabricated to evaluate the thermal performance of our CNP film, which shows rapid heating at very low voltage.