Effect of RGO deposition on chemical and mechanical reliability of Ag nanowire flexible transparent electrode

Abstract

Graphene is known to prevent permeation of gases that can effectively prevent oxidation of Ag nanowires. In this study, the role of the reduced graphene oxide (RGO) in chemical stability and its effect on the mechanical reliability was studied for a Ag nanowire/RGO hybrid transparent electrode. Bending fatigue tests up to 800 000 cycles were performed by monitoring the in situ resistance change while imposing fixed, uniform bending strain on Ag nanowire networks with and without a RGO layer. A thin layer of RGO with an optimized thickness of ∼0.8 nm deposited on the Ag nanowire networks sustained excellent reliability of the Ag nanowire networks, where the fractional resistance increase was 2.7% after 800 000 cycles. Furthermore, adopting the RGO layer significantly lowered the oxidation of Ag nanowires, and the bending fatigue properties after exposure to ambient air for 132 h at 70 °C indicated remarkable enhancement due to suppression of the oxide formation on the surface of the Ag nanowires. Lastly, a highly reliable Ag nanowire/RGO hybrid electrode was fabricated using mechanical welding by subjecting it to bending strain in order to form localized junctions without having to go through any post annealing processes.