One-Pot Synthesis and Purification of Ultralong Silver Nanowires for Flexible Transparent Conductive Electrodes

Metal nanowires (NWs) have become the most promising candidates for the next generation of flexible transparent conductive electrodes (FTCEs), with high transmittance and low sheet resistance. In this work, ultralong silver NWs (Ag NWs), similar to 220 mu m (even larger than 400 mu m) in length and similar to 55 nm in diameter (aspect ratio: similar to 4000), were synthesized via a one-pot polyol process using high molecular weight poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (M-w = 1 300 000) and an appropriate concentration of FeCl3 (12.5 mu M) through hydrothermal reaction. The prepared Ag NWs were purified by a filter cloth (pore size: about 30 X 50 mu m(2)) to remove the Ag nanoparticles and short-length Ag NWs. The FTCE based on the ultralong Ag NWs without any post treatments exhibits low sheet resistance of 155.0 Omega sq(-1) and transmittance of 97.70% at 550 nm. The outstanding performance of FTECs demonstrated that the ultralong Ag NWs are ideal materials for applications in flexible transparent optical devices.