Removable Large-Area Ultrasmooth Silver Nanowire Transparent Composite Electrode

In this work, a composite silver nanowire (AgNW) transparent electrode that is large-area ultrasmooth without conductivity or transmittance scarifice, removable but with good resistance to both water and organic solvent, is reported. Via a simple low-temperature solution process without complicated transfer steps or additional pressure pressing, a new kind of AgNWs composite with biocompatible and patternable chitosan polymer complex demonstrates a quite low root-mean-square roughness ∼7 nm at a largest reported scan size of 50 μm × 50 μm, which is among the best flat surface. After long-term exposure to both water and organic solvent, it still shows strong adhesion, unchanged transparency, and no obvious conductivity reduction, suggesting a good stability staying on the substrate. Meanwhile, the polymer and silver nanowire in the composite electrode can be damaged via the same process through concentrated acid or base etching to leave off the substrate, allowing a simple patterning technology. Besides, the imported insulating polymer does not lower down the opto-electrical performance, and a high figure of merit close to 300 is obtained for the composite electrode, significantly outperforming the optoelectronic performance of indium-tin oxide (ITO) coated plastics (∼100) and comparable to ITO-coated glass. It shows great advantage to replace ITO as a promising transparent electrode.