Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group
Journal Home About Issues in Progress Current Issue All Issues Feature Issues

The role of propagating modes in silver nanowire arrays for transparent electrodes

Tongchuan Gao and Paul W. Leu

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

Silver nanowires have been shown to demonstrate enhanced transmission and promising potential for next-generation transparent electrodes. In this paper, we systematically investigated the electrical and optical properties of 1D and 2D silver nanowire arrays as a function of diameter and pitch and compared their performance to that of silver thin films. Silver nanowires were found to exhibit enhanced transmission over thin films due to propagating resonance modes between nanowires. We evaluated the angular dependence and dispersion relation of these propagating modes and demonstrate that larger nanowire diameters and pitches are favored for achieving higher solar transmission at a particular sheet resistance. Silver nanowires may achieve achieve solar transmission > 90% with sheet resistances of a few Ω/sq and figure of merit σdc/σop > 1000.

© 2013 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Optimization and simulation of a carbon nanotube arrangement for transparent conductive electrodes with record-high direct current to optical conductive ratios

Shau-Liang Chen, Chen-Chieh Yu, Sih-Wei Chang, Yang-Chun Lee, and Hsuen-Li Chen
Opt. Mater. Express 11(4) 1205-1217 (2021)

Large-size, high-uniformity, random silver nanowire networks as transparent electrodes for crystalline silicon wafer solar cells

Shouyi Xie, Zi Ouyang, Baohua Jia, and Min Gu
Opt. Express 21(S3) A355-A362 (2013)

Substrate effects on the transmittance of 1D metal grid transparent electrodes

Kilbock Lee and Jinho Ahn
Opt. Express 22(16) 19021-19028 (2014)

View More...

Cited By

Optica participates in Crossref's Cited-By Linking service. Citing articles from Optica Publishing Group journals and other participating publishers are listed here.

Alert me when this article is cited.


Figures (8)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Schematic of structures studied: (a) silver thin film with thickness t, (b) 1D silver nanowire array with pitch a and the diameter d, and (c) 2D silver nanowire array.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 2
Fig. 2 (a) Transmission of different silver thin film thicknesses t for wavelengths λ = 280 to 1000 nm. (b) Tsolar across the wavelengths shown for different thicknesses with the sheet resistance Rs labelled on the right y-axis. The y-axis in (b) is the same as in (a).

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Transmission characteristics of silver nanowire arrays for TE-incident light for a = 600 nm. (a) Contour plot of T as a function of wavelength and nanowire diameter d. (b) Tsolar over the wavelength range shown with the sheet resistance Rs shown in the right y-axis. (c) Electric field intensity |E|2 for (i) TE1 mode at λ = 600 nm and (ii) TE2 mode at λ = 300 nm with d = 80 nm where the edge of the nanowire is shown with a dashed white line.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Angular-dependence of silver nanowire arrays transmission for TE-incident light for a = 600 nm and d = 100 nm. (a) Contour plot of T as a function of wavelength and incident angle θ. (b) Tsolar over the wavelength range with the same y-axis as in (a).

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Transmission characteristics of silver nanowire arrays for TM-incident light for a = 600 nm. (a) Contour plot of T as a function of wavelength and nanowire diameter d. (b) Tsolar over the wavelength range shown with the same y-axis as in (a) and the sheet resistance Rs shown in the right y-axis. (c) Real part of Hz at λ = 589 nm for (i) 50 and (ii) 200 nm diameter silver nanowires. (d) Re(Hz) at λ = 300 nm for (i) 50 and (ii) 200 nm diameter silver nanowires.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 6
Fig. 6 Angular-dependence of Ag nanowire arrays transmission for TM-incident light for a = 600 nm and d = 100 nm. (a) Contour plot of T as a function of wavelength and incident angle θ. (b) Tsolar over the wavelength range with the same y-axis as in (a).

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 7
Fig. 7 (a) Tsolar versus Rs and (b) σdc/σop for 1D silver nanowires with different diameters d. Tsolar is the average of TE and TM-polarized incident light. The marker size is proportional to the pitch a of the nanowire array from 10 to 2000 nm. The pitches shown are from 10 to 100 nm in 10 nm increments, 100 to 1000 nm in 100 nm increments and 2000 nm. a ≥ d.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 8
Fig. 8 (a) Tsolar versus Rs and (b) σdc/σop for 2D silver nanowire arrays with different diameters d. The marker size is proportional to the pitch a of the nanowire array from 10 to 2000 nm. The pitches shown are from 10 to 100 nm in 10 nm increments, 100 to 1000 nm in 100 nm increments and 2000 nm. a ≥ d.

Download Full Size | PDF

Equations (2)

Equations on this page are rendered with MathJax. Learn more.

T solar = ∫ b ( λ ) T ( λ ) d λ ∫ b ( λ ) d λ
λ = a ( 1 ± sin θ ) / m .
Select as filters
Select Topics Cancel
Top
       
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Privacy | Terms of Use