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Flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) with embedded metal mesh composed of composite materials or structures have excellent comprehensive performance, which has attracted extensive attention, but it also brings great challenges to its manufacturing. Herein, a simple and cost-effective fabrication process free of template, vacuum processes is proposed for high-performance FTEs with ultra-fine embedded Cu/Ag(shell)-P4VP(core) conductive grid via a microscale hybrid additive manufacturing technique. The produced FTE exhibits excellent properties with a sheet resistance of 2.5 O, a transmittance of 93% at a line pitch of 250 µm, and an ultra-fine line width of 4 µm, low surface roughness (Ra = 5.28 nm), and excellent mechanical stability (no change in Rs after 100 adhesion and 150 scratch tests). The FTEs expose only a few conductive areas, which make it excellent environmental stability (no change in Rs after exposure to humidity environment for 72 h). The flexible electroluminescent device fabricated with this FTE has good bending and luminescent properties, showing great potential for flexible optoelectronic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal mesh transparent electrodes present a promising alternative to Indium-Tin Oxide (ITO) due to their adjustable period and favourable trade-off between transmittance and conductivity. In this work, a template-free, non-high temperature hybrid additive manufacturing approach of the polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/Cu core--shell structure high-resolution metal mesh flexible transparent electrode (FTE) is proposed. The electric field-driven (EFD) 3D printing method was employed to print ultra-fine lines with widths as low as 1 μm. The composite-plating process combining electroless plating and electroplating has solved the structural defects of single deposition process. The prepared FTE has an excellent conductivity down to 1 Ω/sq and 89% light transmission (at 550 nm). Its exceptional mechanical properties and environmental stability make it suitable for diverse working environments. Even after undergoing 2000 bends at a radius of 3 mm, the resistance change rate remains as low as 1.4%. The resistance exhibits an approximately 8% change rate in the acid--base environment experiments conducted over 72 h. The flexible touch screen prepared with this FTE exhibits excellent writing performance in both flat and curved working scenarios. Furthermore, the significant potential of this FTE in the field of optoelectronics is effectively demonstrated through its exceptional luminescent performance in electroluminescent devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) are widely used in applications ranging from display devices to thin-film solar cells. It remains a challenge, however, for industry and academia to implement mass production of large-area TCEs at low cost and at high volumes. It is also difficult to fabricate TCEs with good electrical properties and high light transmittance levels. In this study, a novel large-area and high-performance TCE manufacturing method is demonstrated that combines the electric-field-driven fusion direct printing technique and the liquid bridge transfer method. The master molds of the TCEs are fabricated by the electric-field-driven fusion direct printing technology, then soft lithography and the liquid bridge transfer processes are used to form the TCEs on different substrates. The relationships between process parameters, and their effects on the fabrication of the TCEs are explored through experiments, and the optimal process parameters are established. Using these methods, grid and stripe TCEs on the glass substrates with an area of 50 mm  ×  50 mm, an average line width of 4 µm, a spacing of 200 µm, a transmittance effectiveness of 88.94% and 88.15% which was nearly same as the bare glass, and a sheet resistance of 12 Ω sq−1 were successfully manufactured. These results illustrate the feasibility of mass producing large-area TCEs with high performances and at low cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]