Temperature-Controlled Direct Imprinting of Ag Ionic Ink: Flexible Metal Grid Transparent Conductors with Enhanced...

Next-generation transparent conductors (TCs) require excellent electromechanical durability under mechanical deformations as well as high electrical conductivity and transparency. Here we introduce a method for the fabrication of highly conductive, low-porosity, flexible metal grid TCs via temperature-controlled direct imprinting (TCDI) of Ag ionic ink. The TCDI technique based on two-step heating is capable of not only stably capturing the Ag ionic ink, but also reducing the porosity of thermally decomposed Ag nanoparticle structures by eliminating large amounts of organic complexes. The porosity reduction of metal grid TCs on a glass substrate leads to a significant decrease of the sheet resistance from 21.5 to 5.5 Ω sq^-1 with an optical transmittance of 91% at λ = 550 nm. The low-porosity metal grid TCs are effectively embedded to uniform, thin and transparent polymer films with negligible resistance changes from the glass substrate having strong interfacial fracture energy (~8.2 J m^-2). Finally, as the porosity decreases, the flexible metal grid TCs show a significantly enhanced electromechanical durability under bending stresses. Organic light-emitting diodes based on the flexible metal grid TCs as anode electrodes are demonstrated.