Electrical percolation in quasi-two-dimensional metal nanowire networks for transparent conductors

We simulate the conductivity of quasi-two-dimensional mono- and polydisperse rod networks having rods of various aspect ratios (L/D = 25-800) and rod densities up to 100 times the critical density and assuming contact-resistance dominated transport. We report the rod-size dependence of the percolation threshold and the density dependence of the conductivity exponent over the entire L/D range studied. Our findings clarify the range of applicability for the popular widthless-stick description for physical networks of rodlike objects with modest aspect ratios and confirm predictions for the high-density dependence of the conductivity exponent obtained from modest-density systems. We also propose a heuristic extension to the finite-width excluded area percolation model to account for arbitrary distributions in rod length and validate this solution with numerical results from our simulations. These results are relevant to nanowire films that are among the most promising candidates for high performance flexible transparent electrodes.