Airtight metallic sealing at room temperature under small mechanical pressure

Metallic seals can be resistant to air leakage, resistant to degradation under heat, and capable of carrying mechanical loads. Various technologies--such as organic solar cells and organic light emitting diodes--need, at least benefit from, such metallic seals. However, these technologies involve polymeric materials and can tolerate neither the high-temperature nor the high-pressure processes of conventional metallic sealing. Recent progress in nanorod growth opens the door to metallic sealing for these technologies. Here, we report a process of metallic sealing using small well-separated Ag nanorods; the process is at room temperature, under a small mechanical pressure of 9.0 MPa, and also in ambient. The metallic seals have an air leak rate of 1.1 × 10(-3) cm(3)atm/m(2)/day, and a mechanical shear strength higher than 8.9 MPa. This leak rate meets the requirements of organic solar cells and organic light emitting diodes.