High-Performance Transparent Electrodes for Automobile Windshield Heaters Prepared by Combining Metal Grids and Oxide/Metal/Oxide Transparent Electrodes

Transparent heaters can be fabricated with a wide variety of materials including indium-tin oxide, carbon nano tubes, graphenes, metal nanowires, metal grids, and hybrid-type electrodes. However these materials have been applied to small area heaters below 0.01 m(2) because of the limit of electrical and optical properties. High-performance transparent electrodes for large-area purpose (over 1.0 m(2)) have never been developed with any practical applicability in spite of their utility for removing fog or iced water on automobile windshield, which can be critical for safety and convenience of the drivers. Achieving ultralow resistance with high transparence is the major technical barrier in windshield heaters due to the intrinsic long distance between electrodes and low battery voltage in automobiles. In this study, a high performance transparent electrode, super hybrid electrode (SHE) is developed, which is manufactured by combining metal grids with oxide/metal/oxide electrode based on a newly developed electroplating method, which guarantees uniform properties over large area, over 1.0 m(2). Utilizing this newly devised electrode technology, an automobile windshield heater is successfully fabricated with sheet resistance of 0.1-0.3 Omega square(-1) and the transmittance of over 82% in large area samples of 1.01 m(2), which is good enough for automobile windshield application.