RESEARCH ARTICLE

Self-confined electrohydrodynamic printing on micro-structured substrate for flexible transparent electrodes with embedded metal mesh

¹ State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
² School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
³ Hubei Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission and Manufacturing Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China

^* Corresponding authors (emails: panyanqiao@wust.edu.cn (Yanqiao Pan); yahuang@hust.edu.cn (YongAn Huang))

Received: 5 May 2024
Revised: 6 June 2024
Accepted: 29 August 2024

Abstract

Flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) have attracted much attention due to their advantages of excellent optical/electrical conductivities and good mechanical fatigue strength. However, their fabrication presents several challenges, including fabricating wires with a high aspect ratio and sufficient tensile resistance. In this study, an embedded Ag/Cu metal-mesh FTE with a high figure of merit 24,708 (sheet resistance 0.08 Ω/sq and 83.4% optical transmittance) is fabricated through the proposed method called self-confined electrohydrodynamic printing and selective electroplating of Cu. This method employs structured surfaces and patterned hydrophilic/hydrophobic properties to enable highly controllable deposition of solutions (e.g., positioning, line width, consistency), allowing the complete filling of imprinted microgrooves with a high aspect ratio of 2 (e.g., 4 μm width and 8 μm depth) with Ag/Cu metal. Moreover, the resulting FTEs demonstrate good resistance stability under repetitive bending and stretching and exhibit excellent performance in flexible transparent heaters and electromagnetic shielding films.