UV treatment of flexible copper nanowire mesh films for transparent conductor applications

Copper nanowires have the potential to reach and even exceed the indium tin oxide performances as flexible transparent conductive electrodes. However, for a large-scale production, they need to be fabricated in a high-speed, low-cost way, without degrading the flexible substrate. One of the major bottlenecks resides in the post-treatment used to remove organic residues from the surface of the nanowires after forming the transparent electrode, which is necessary to obtain high optoelectronic performances. Here, we propose an ultra-violet irradiation and a subsequent acetic acid bath as an easy, scalable, fast post-treatment. After only 2 min of ultra-violet treatment, followed by 10 min of acid bath, an Rs of 42 Ω sq−1 and a T 550 nm of 87% were measured. Besides, copper nanowire electrodes maintained their high transparency in the range 750–2500 nm, which makes them good candidates for applications such as infrared solar cells.