Properties Improvement of Flexible Silver Nanowires Transparent Conductive Thin Film by Using Atmospheric Plasma Posttreatment

This study used the polyol method to synthesize silver nanowires (AgNWs). N-vinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was used as a capping agent to control the morphology of the final product. This capping agent can attach to the surface of AgNW products, causing the sheet resistance of the thin transparent conductive film (TCF) for the nanowires to become excessively high. At present, the two AgNW TCF production methods that are able to lower the sheet resistance of the film comprise the annealing posttreatment and mechanical pressing posttreatment methods. This study proposed using the atmospheric plasma (AP) method to perform the posttreatment process for the AgNW TCFs. This method can decrease the sheet resistance of the film by up to 89.25% from 2.16 kΩ/sq to 232.2 Ω/sq, and retain the light transmittance rate of the film at a level similar to that before posttreatment. The AP method is a low-temperature and noncontact posttreatment process method that can effectively resolve the shortcomings of the annealing and mechanical pressing posttreatment methods. This technology has a relatively simple process, is inexpensive, and can be used to produce high-quality AgNW TCFs that can satisfy the needs of optoelectronic elements.