Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) are used in solar to electrical energy conversion and more commonlyx000D
in smartphones and other touch screen display applications. There are few suitable TCE materials that affordx000D
the transparency of glass as well as the high conductivity associated with metals. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is thex000D
best known material. For large area devices, the high cost of these materials has led to a search for alternatives.x000D
Fine chains of sub-micron diameter wires (nanowires) on inexpensive non-conducting substrates such as glassx000D
or polymers can provide high electrical conductivity and high transparency. In our Nanoscale Transport,x000D
Mechanics and Materials (NTMM) Laboratory at the University of Victoria, we have demonstrated howx000D
electric fields may be designed to create chains of fine (nanowires). Alternative techniques include spinning orx000D
drop-casting nanowires from a liquid suspension, followed by drying and laser ablation. These techniques yieldx000D
substrates with less control of nanowire order and connectivity, and the use of ablation is wasteful, withx000D
potential for risk of dispersion. Techniques that allow more ordered conductive materials are prohibitivelyx000D
expensive for large-area use. We have demonstrated a prototype TCE made by electric-field-directed nanowirex000D
chaining. In this work, we propose to investigate designs that will yield the best figure of merit (highest opticalx000D
transmittance to electrical conductance ratio). The effort to control connectivity and contact between thex000D
nanowire chains for best use of materials will be guided by our experiments and numerical simulations.