Simple and Fast Preparation of Transparent Conductive Films of Silver Nanowires Obtained by a Salt Assisted Polyol Method

Silver nanowires thin films have gained attention due to their excellent optical and electrical properties, being a potential material to be applied in optoelectronic devices as transparent conductive films, deposited on a substrate in a such way that forms a percolated network. We report the synthesis of silver nanowires with average length of 9.5 ± 0.4 µm and diameter of 75 ± 3 nm by a modified polyol method and fabrication of transparent and conductive thin films using a simple and low-cost technique as drop-casting. Additionally, we examined the influence of the drop-casting method in function of number of deposition cycles on the optical and electrical properties of the films through optical absorption and electrical resistance measurements using the two-point methodology. Increasing the number of silver nanowire deposition layers, the optical transmittance decreased from 97 (for one layer) to 60% (for five layers), and electrical resistance decreased from 940 ± 0.35 Ω for the 2-layer film to 32 ± 0.02 Ω, for the 5-layer film. Due to the electrical conductivity range of the produced silver nanowires films, we suggested their application in low-voltage circuits.

Keywords:
silver nanowires; polyol method; transparent conductive films; drop-casting