Highly transparent, conductive, flexible resin films embedded with silver nanowires

In this article, a low sheet resistance and highly transparent silver nanowire (AgNW) resin composite film was demonstrated, which was prepared by a simple and efficacious two-step spin-coating method. By burying the AgNWs below the surface of the transparent resin matrix which was cured at 150 °C in air, we achieved a uniform, highly transparent, conductive, flexible film. Compared to the reported transparent electrodes, this composite transparent and conductive film showed 10 Ω/□ sheet resistance and nearly 90% mean optical transmittance over the UV-visible range simultaneously. Undergoing hundreds of cycles of tensile and compression folding, the composite film slightly increased its sheet resistance by less than 5%, displaying good electromechanical flexibility. These characteristics of the composite AgNW-resin films were expected to be used in applications of flexible optoelectronics.