Corrosion Study of Silver Nanowires

Abstract

Indium tin oxide is a transparent conductive material that is widely used in electronic consumer products such as LCDs, LEDs, OLEDs, touch-screen devices, and diagnostic sensors. However, indium tin oxide is costly to produce and is very brittle, limiting its potential for the next generation of flexible and wearable devices and diagnostic tools. Silver nanowires are cylindrically shaped nanostructures that have been touted as the replacement to indium tin oxide. Their electronic performance and transparency outperforms the incumbent technology, and their mechanical flexibility and low implementation costs provide a significant advantage over indium tin oxide for use in electronic applications. However, silver nanowires are unstable and the electrodes can become non-conductive under ambient conditions in less than sixty days. Although silver nanowire degradation is a major problem, few studies exist revealing the challenges with appropriate solutions for enhancing the silver nanowire lifetimes. Through this present work, we found that variables such as nanowire diameter, nanowire density, and pre- and post-deposition processing parameters have a significant impact on the lifetime of nanowire electrodes. These results will be presented and guidelines for improving nanowire stability and lifetime will be outlined. Furthermore, investigations into an effective conductive organic passivation layer were systematically performed to determine the material’s viability as a method of passivating corrosion in the silver nanowire electrodes. It was observed that the organic passivation material was ineffective as a method of preventing corrosion in silver nanowires. In fact, the use of this organic material appears to have caused corrosion to occur at a faster rate than a bare silver nanowire transparent electrode would undergo when exposed to ambient conditions.