Post-Treatment of Screen-Printed Silver Nanowire Networks for Highly Conductive Flexible Transparent Films

Screen printing is an important technique for creating 2D conductive patterns with high conductivity and resolution. Non-conductive additives are thus required in printable ink formulation in order to achieve appropriate viscosity and rheological behaviors. However, it is still a challenge to recover the conductivity of the printed networks after screen printing, while keeping the integrity of the patterns during repeated water-washing. Herein, a series of post-treatments are introduced into the washing process in order to achieve high-quality silver nanowire (Ag NW) transparent conductive films. Screen-printed patterns can be well maintained because of the enhanced adhesion between the Ag NW networks and flexible poly(ethylene terephthalate) substrates. High-performance transparent conductive film with extremely low sheet resistance (0.72 Ω sq⁻¹) is achieved by combining plasma treatment, thermal annealing, and high pressure, making screen-printed Ag NW conductive networks promising to be used in the next-generation flexible optoelectronic devices.