Advance could bring commercial applications for silver nanowires
Purdue University photo
"We show that even if you have only a one-atom-thickness material, it can protect from an enormous amount of UV radiation damage," said Gary Cheng , an associate professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University.
Devices made from silver nanowires and graphene could find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics, and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing. The material is flexible and transparent, yet electrically conductive, and is a potential replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO. Industry is seeking alternatives to ITO because of drawbacks: It is relatively expensive due to limited abundance of indium, and it is inflexible and degrades over time, becoming brittle and hindering performance, said Suprem Das , a former Purdue doctoral student and now a postdoctoral researcher at Iowa State University and The Ames Laboratory .
However, a major factor limiting commercial applications for silver nanowires is their susceptibility to harsh environments and electromagnetic waves.
"Radiation damage is widespread," said Das, who led the work with Purdue doctoral student Qiong Nian. "The damage occurs in medical imaging, in space applications and just from long-term exposure to sunlight, but we are now seeing that if you wrap silver nanowires with graphene you can overcome this problem."
"It appears the graphene coating extracts and spreads thermal energy away from the nanowires," Das said. The graphene also helps to prevent moisture damage.
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