Facile preparation of high conductive silver electrodes by dip-coating followed by quick sintering

With polyol-synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as raw materials, the silver electrodes with high conductivity were fabricated via a dip-coating method followed by sintering process, and the effects of the dip-coating and sintering process on the conductivity and surface roughness of silver electrodes were investigated in detail. The silver film with a thickness of 1.97 µm and a roughness of about 2 nm can be prepared after dip-coating at a pulling rate of 500 µm s^-1 for 40 coating times. The non-conductive dip-coated silver films are transformed into conductive silver electrodes after conventional sintering in a muffle oven, infrared sintering and microwave sintering, respectively. Compared with high sintering temperature and long sintering time of conventional sintering and infrared sintering, microwave sintering can achieve quick sintering of silver films to fabricate high conductive silver electrodes. The silver electrodes with a sheet resistance of 0.75 Ω sq^-1 and a surface roughness of less than 1 nm can be obtained after microwave sintering at 500 W for 50 s. The adjustable dip-coating method followed by quick microware sintering is an appropriate approach to prepare high conductive AgNPs-based electrodes for organic light-emitting diodes or other devices.