Monday 3 June 2013

Stretchable, transparent graphene-metal nanowire electrode

Stretchable, transparent graphene-metal nanowire electrode

A hybrid transparent and stretchable electrode could open the new way for flexible displays, solar cells, and even electronic devices fitted on a curvature substrate such as soft eye contact lenses, by the UNIST(Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) research team.
Transparent electrodes are in and of themselves nothing all that new – they have been widely used in things like touch screens, flat-screen TVs,  and light-emitting devices. Currently transparent electrodes are commonly made from a material known as (ITO). Although it suffices for its job, it's brittle, cracking and losing functionality if flexed. It also degrades over time, and is somewhat expensive due to the limited quantities of indium metal.
This is an LED fitted soft eye contact lense. Credit: UNIST
As an alternative, the networks of randomly distributed mNWs have been considered as promising candidates for next-generation transparent electrodes, due to their low-cost, high-speed fabrication of transparent electrodes.
However, the number of disadvantage of the mNW networks has limited their integration into commercial devices. They have low , typically high NW-NW junction resistance, high contact resistance between network and active materials, material instability and poor adhesion to .
UNIST scientists here, combined  with silver  to form a thin, transparent and stretchable electrode. Combining graphene and silver nanowires in a hybrid material overcomes weakness of individual material.
Graphene is also well known as good a candidate for  because of their unique electrical properties and high mechanical flexibility. However, scalable graphene synthesis methods for commercialization produces lower quality graphene with individual segments called grains which increases the  at boundaries between these grains.


Read more at: http://phys.org

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