Parametric studies of field-directed nanowire chaining for transparent electrodes

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dc.contributor.authorAlsaif, Jehad
dc.contributor.supervisorBhiladvala, Rustom
dc.date.accessioned2017-08-25T20:58:53Z
dc.date.available2017-08-25T20:58:53Z
dc.date.copyright2017en_US
dc.date.issued2017-08-25
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Mechanical Engineeringen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Applied Science M.A.Sc.en_US
dc.description.abstractTransparent electrodes (TEs) have become important components of displays, touch screens, and solar photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion devices. As electrodes, they must be electrically conductive while being transparent. Transparent materials are normally poor conductors and materials with high electrical conductivity, such as metals, are typically not transparent. From the few candidate materials, indium tin oxide (ITO) is currently the best available, but indium is an expensive material and ITO cost has risen with increasing demand. Therefore, alternative materials or methods are sought to encourage production needs of applications and help in reducing their price. This thesis presents and discusses results of experimental work for a method, field-directed chaining, to produce a TE device which is nanowire-based, with a figure of merit FoM= 2.39 x10E-4 Ohm E-1, comparable to ITO but with potential for far lower cost. Using electric field-directed chaining, multiple parallel long chains of metal nanowires are assembled on inexpensive transparent materials such as glass by field directed nanowire chaining, using methods first demonstrated in our laboratory. In this work, we have improved the fraction of functional chains, by tuning the field/voltage, a key step in increasing the FoM and lowering the cost. The effect of operating parameters on TE optical and electrical properties has been studied and identified as well. From experiments with twenty seven substrates, each with a range of electric field and nanowire concentration, the highest light transmission achieved is 78% and the lowest sheet resistance achieved is 100 Ohm/sq. Among all the operating parameters, the electric field has the most significant influence on the fraction of nanowire chains that are functional. In the operating range of electric field strength available to us, we observed a monotonic increase in the fraction of functional nanowire chains. We found a counter-intuitive change in TE properties in a sub-range of nanowire concentration, associated with a change in the structure of chained patterns.en_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/8463
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectNanowireen_US
dc.subjectChainingen_US
dc.subjectTransparent Electrodeen_US
dc.subjectDirected assemblyen_US
dc.subjectDielectrophoretic forceen_US
dc.subjectDielectrophoresisen_US
dc.subjectNanowire synthesisen_US
dc.subjectSheet resistanceen_US
dc.subjectRhodium nanowiresen_US
dc.subjectPhotolithographyen_US
dc.subjectITOen_US
dc.subjectIndium tin oxideen_US
dc.subjectNanoscale patternsen_US
dc.titleParametric studies of field-directed nanowire chaining for transparent electrodesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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