Effect of deposition repetition and annealing treatment on the figure of merit of silver nanowire-based transparent conducting electrodes

Silver nanowires (AgNW) is one of the great candidates to replace the role of expensive and relatively rare indium tin oxide (ITO) as the primary material for transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs). TCEs are essential components in numbers of optoelectronic devices, such as organic light-emitting diode (OLED), touchscreen, and solar cells. The specific attribute of TCEs in both optical transmittance and electrical conductivity offers a possible extraction of electrical carriers while transmitting light through the layer. In this study, AgNW was synthesized using a wet chemistry method and deposited on glass substrates with the method of spin coating. In favor to enhance the performance of TCEs, the optimization of number of deposition and post-treatment annealing at 200 °C on glass substrate was then applied. The Hall Effect and UV-Vis Spectroscopy characterization results show that the Figure of Merit (FOM) of AgNW in this study reaches 6.27 × 10-3 ω-1 that is comparable with FOM of commercial ITO of 7.16 × 10-3 ω-1. The present results provide a plausible way to design and fabricate a new alternative material for TCEs with relatively low cost.