High conductivity and transparency metal network fabricated by acrylic colloidal self-cracking template for flexible thermochromic device

Abstract In this work, a novel metal network with high conductivity and transparency is demonstrated, fabricating by acrylic colloidal self-cracking template method. A randomly cracked water-borne acrylic polymer film is prepared by solution method and used as the template on PET flexible substrate, and then conductive metal films (Ag) was deposited by magnetron sputtering. Ag film (thickness about 100 nm) with high transmittance (86.39% in the UV–vis region) and excellent electronic conductivity (6.08Ω·sq−1) is fabricated, which is one of the best TCE candidates. Moreover, this novel metal network could be used as the TCE substrate to fabricate flexible thermochromic device with a short response time (T