Structural regulation of silver nanowires and their application in flexible electronic thin films

Crystalline quality and capping agent ratio are crucial to the electrical property of silver nanowires (AgNWs). In this paper, in order to achieve the high conductance, the crystalline quality of AgNWswas regulated by a comparative study of mediated ions Cu2+ and Fe3+ in polyol process, and the capping ratio of Poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) on the surface of AgNWs was intensively adjusted. The proper addition of Fe3+ ions was a more favorable route to achieve AgNWswith fine crystallinity and uniformdimension, and amonolayer PVP capping on AgNWs surface was finally obtained. The as-prepared AgNWs was applied to formulate a conductive ink and then conductive trackswere formed on polymeric substrate after amild temperature treatment. A high electrical conductivity of 3.93 x 10(5) S/cmand an outstanding bending resistancewere achieved for these tracks. Moreover, 20wt% AgNWs was embedded into polypyrrole (PPy) as a filler to form a flexible electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding thin film. The AgNWs could greatly improve the conductivity of PPy film, and correspondingly the shielding effectiveness (SET) of PPy/AgNWs was almost 3.57 times higher than that of pure PPy. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.