Highly Stable Transparent Electrodes Made from Copper Nanotrough Coated with AZO/Al2O3

Due to their high flexibility, high conductivity and high transparency in a wide spectrum range, metal nanowires and meshes are considered to be two of the most promising candidates to replace the traditional transparent conducting films, such as tin doped indium oxide. In this paper, transparent conducting films made from copper nanotroughs are prepared by the electrospinning of polymer fibers and subsequent thermal evaporation of copper. The advantages of the technique include low junction resistance, low cost and low preparation temperature. Although the copper nanotrough transparent conducting films exhibited a low sheet resistance (19.2 Ω/sq), with a high transmittance (88% at 550 nm), the instability of copper in harsh environments seriously hinders its applications. In order to improve the stability of the metal transparent conducting films, copper nanotroughs were coated with 39 nm thick aluminum-doped zinc oxide and 1 nm thick aluminum oxide films by atomic layer deposition. The optical and electrical measurements show that coating copper nanotrough with oxides barely reduces the transparency of the films. It is worth noting that conductive oxide coating can effectively protect copper nanotroughs from thermal oxidation or acidic corrosion, whilst maintaining the same flexibility as copper nanotroughs on its own.