TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence of low-temperature joints in silver nanowire based transparent conducting layers for solar cells
AU - Teymouri, Arastoo
AU - Adabifiroozjaei, Esmaeil
AU - Webster, Richard F.
AU - Hagh, Sara Mesgari
AU - Hao, Xiaojing
AU - Green, Martin A.
AU - Pillai, Supriya
PY - 2020/4/24
Y1 - 2020/4/24
N2 - The primary stage of joint formation of silver nanowires (AgNWs) at 60 °C is investigated by using rotary scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM with tomographic reconstruction images) and super-large-scale molecular dynamic (MD) simulation (2 × 106 atoms). This study proves to establish that silver nanowires do not require the conventional higherature post-treatment process at 200 °C to form fused contacts at the intersections. In fact, a lowerature annealing at 60 °C facilitates formation of highly conductive networks. The connection between the nanowires is made through a stage called thinning, shown in this report for the first time, which occurs before broadening of the nanowires and is caused due to simultaneous effects of loads from the top nanowires and the heating, as confirmed by STEM and MD results. The outcomes of our investigation significantly promote the application of AgNWs as a transparent conductive layer for solar cells with requirement of lowerature processing such as kasterite, perovskite, and organic solar cells.
AB - The primary stage of joint formation of silver nanowires (AgNWs) at 60 °C is investigated by using rotary scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM with tomographic reconstruction images) and super-large-scale molecular dynamic (MD) simulation (2 × 106 atoms). This study proves to establish that silver nanowires do not require the conventional higherature post-treatment process at 200 °C to form fused contacts at the intersections. In fact, a lowerature annealing at 60 °C facilitates formation of highly conductive networks. The connection between the nanowires is made through a stage called thinning, shown in this report for the first time, which occurs before broadening of the nanowires and is caused due to simultaneous effects of loads from the top nanowires and the heating, as confirmed by STEM and MD results. The outcomes of our investigation significantly promote the application of AgNWs as a transparent conductive layer for solar cells with requirement of lowerature processing such as kasterite, perovskite, and organic solar cells.
KW - silver nanowire
KW - junction resistivity
KW - transparent conductive layer
KW - low-temperature process
KW - scanning transmission electron microscopy
KW - molecular dynamic simulation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084921104&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsanm.9b02290
DO - 10.1021/acsanm.9b02290
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084921104
SN - 2574-0970
VL - 3
SP - 3205
EP - 3213
JO - ACS Applied Nano Materials
JF - ACS Applied Nano Materials
IS - 4
ER -