Direct Fabrication of Flexible Ni Micro-Grid Transparent Conducting Electrode via Electroplated Metal Transfer

Abstract

We developed a cost-effective fabrication process using a reusable Si master mold for fabricating a flexible metal microgrid transparent conducting electrode (TCE). The flexible metal microgrid TCE can be simply produced via metal electroplating on the master mold and subsequent metal transferring onto the flexible polymer substrate. In particular, Nickel (Ni), which is generally known as a cost-effective metal, was used as a material for the TCE. Therefore, low-cost fabrication was accomplished due to not only easy fabrication process but also using an inexpensive material. The fabricated flexible Ni microgrid TCE exhibited excellent optical and electrical properties (sheet resistance of 6.1 Ω/□ at 96% transmittance), and showed outstanding mechanical flexibility with no significant change of sheet resistance after 1000 bending cycles at a bending radius of 2 mm. Furthermore, we demonstrated a touch screen panel (TSP) with the Ni microgrid TCE to confirm its practical suitability, and the fabricated TSP was operated successfully. Therefore, we expect that the proposed flexible Ni microgrid TCE has rapid commercialization possibilities due to high optoelectronic performance with just using cost-effective material and facile fabrication process.