Inkjet printing high performance flexible electrodes via a graphene decorated Ag ink

The preparation of printed flexible conductive electrodes is a very important step to realize low-cost preparation of ultra-low power consumption wearable electronic devices. Although silver ink has shown excellent conductivity and stability in the printed electronic devices, many critical issues including particle-to-particle disconnection under mechanical stress must be addressed before it is applied in the flexible field. Here, we have proposed a one-step in-situ synthesis of low-cost Ag ink doped with graphene. It is demonstrated the effectiveness of the printed Ag network embedded by graphene as flexible electrodes, and investigated their conductive, mechanical and microstructural properties. As a metal-based reinforcing material, graphene could improve the flexibility of the metal-based matrix through effects such as stress transfer, dislocation strengthening, and grain refinement, while maintaining their low resistance. In this work, the electrodes obtained from the functional material with graphene mass fraction of 6.7% exhibit a low resistivity of 4.81 x 10(-7) Omega.m. Even after 100,000 cycles of bending cycles, the printed electrodes could almost still maintain the initial conductivity. The facile synthesis and good properties make the material have great application potential in wearable electronic devices.