Selective growth and integration of silver nanoparticles on silver nanowires at room conditions for transparent nano-network electrode.

Recently, metal nanowires have received great research interests due to their potential as next-generation flexible transparent electrodes. While great efforts have been devoted to develop enabling nanowire electrodes, reduced contact resistance of the metal nanowires and improved electrical stability under continuous bias operation are key issues for practical applications. Here, we propose and demonstrate an approach through a low-cost, robust, room temperature and room atmosphere process to fabricate a conductive silver nano-network comprising silver nanowires and silver nanoparticles. To be more specific, silver nanoparticles are selectively grown and chemically integrated in situ at the junction where silver nanowires meet. The site-selective growth of silver nanoparticles is achieved by a plasmon-induced chemical reaction using a simple light source at very low optical power density. Compared to silver nanowire electrodes without chemical treatment, we observe tremendous conductivity improvement in our silver nano-networks, while the loss in optical transmission is negligible. Furthermore, the silver nano-networks exhibit superior electrical stability under continuous bias operation compared to silver nanowire electrodes formed by thermal annealing. Interestingly, our silver nano-network is readily peeled off in water, which can be easily transferred to other substrates and devices for versatile applications. We demonstrate the feasibly transferrable silver conductive nano-network as the top electrode in organic solar cells. Consequently, the transparent and conductive silver nano-networks formed by our approach would be an excellent candidate for various applications in optoelectronics and electronics.