Transparent Conductive Coatings by Printing Coffee Ring Arrays Obtained at Room Temperature
- 3 November 2009
- journal article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in ACS Nano
- Vol. 3 (11), 3537-3542
- https://doi.org/10.1021/nn901239z
Abstract
We report here a concept for utilization of the “coffee ring effect” and inkjet printing to obtain transparent conductive patterns, which can replace the widely used transparent conductive oxides, such as ITO. The transparent conductive coating is achieved by forming a 2-D array of interconnected metallic rings. The rim of the individual rings is less than 10 μm in width and less than 300 nm in height, surrounding a “hole” with a diameter of about 150 μm; therefore the whole array of the interconnected rings is almost invisible to the naked eye. The rims of the rings are composed of self-assembled, closely packed silver nanoparticles, which make the individual rings and the resulting array electrically conductive. The resulting arrays of rings have a transparency of 95%; resistivity of 0.5 cm2 was 4 ± 0.5 Ω/◻, which is better than conventional ITO transparent thin films. The silver rings and arrays are fabricated by a very simple, low cost process, based on inkjet printing of a dispersion of 0.5 wt % silver nanoparticles (∼20 nm diameter) on plastic substrates. The performance of this transparent conductive coating was demonstrated by using it as an electrode for a plastic electroluminescent device, demonstrating the applicability of this concept in plastics electronics. It is expected that such transparent conductive coatings can be used in a wide range of applications such as displays (LCD, plasma, touch screens, e-paper), lighting devices (electroluminescence, OLED), and solar cells.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- The preferential deposition of silica micro-particles at the boundary of inkjet printed dropletsSoft Matter, 2008
- Inkjet-Printed Line Morphologies and Temperature Control of the Coffee Ring EffectLangmuir, 2008
- Transparent, Conductive Graphene Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar CellsNano Letters, 2007
- Marangoni Effect Reverses Coffee-Ring DepositionsThe Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2006
- Ring Stain Effect at Room Temperature in Silver Nanoparticles Yields High Electrical ConductivityLangmuir, 2005
- Formation of Crystalline Ring Patterns on Extremely Hydrophobic Supersmooth Substrates: Extension of Ring Formation ParadigmsCrystal Growth & Design, 2005
- Ink‐Jet Printing of Metallic Nanoparticles and MicroemulsionsMacromolecular Rapid Communications, 2005
- Transparent, Conductive Carbon Nanotube FilmsScience, 2004
- Aluminum-doped zinc oxide films as transparent conductive electrode for organic light-emitting devicesApplied Physics Letters, 2003
- Capillary flow as the cause of ring stains from dried liquid dropsNature, 1997