Highly Bendable and Durable Transparent Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Film Prepared by Wet Sintering of Silver Nanowires

Electromagnetic (EM) wave emissions from wearable or flexible smart display devices can cause product malfunction and have a detrimental effect on human health. Therefore, EM shielding strategies are becoming increasingly necessary. Consequently, herein, we prepared a transparent acrylic polymer-coated/reduced graphene oxide/silver nanowire (Ag NW) (A/RGO/SANW) EM interference (EMI) shielding film via liquid-to-vapor pressure-assisted wet sintering. The film exhibited enhanced Ag NW network formation and antireflection (AR) effects. The wet-sintered Ag NW shielding film had a threshold radius of curvature (ROC) of 0.31 mm at a film thickness of 100 μm, demonstrating its high flexibility, whereas the conventional indium tin oxide (ITO) shielding film had a threshold ROC of ∼5 mm. The EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) of the A/RGO/SANW multilayer film was approximately twice that of the ITO film at a similar relative transmittance (84-85%). The optical relative reflectance of the Ag NW layer was reduced due to the AR effect, and the visible-light transmittance was considerably improved owing to the different refractive indices in the multilayer shielding film. Because the acrylic coating layer had a high contact angle, the multilayer film exhibited high temperature and humidity durability with little change in the SE over 500 h at 85 °C and 85% relative humidity. The multilayer film comprising wet-sintered Ag NW exhibited high flexibility and humidity durability, high shielding performance (more than 24 dB at a relative transmittance of 85% or more), and high mass productivity, making it highly applicable for use as a transparent shielding material for future flexible devices.