Silver and copper nanowire-based nanocomposite for transparent electrodes: deposition methods and applications in solar cells

ABSTRACT The solution-phase fabrication of photovoltaic cells has drawn a wide attention in the area of flexible electronics owing to their cost-effective and easy fabrication methodology. In addition to the different other layers, the transparent conducting layers have demonstrated a very important role in the fabrication of various flexible devices such as display panel, organic light-emitting diodes, and transparent heater. The most commonly used material for transparent electrodes (TEs) are indium tin oxide (ITO), aluminium zinc oxides (AZO), which required highly expensive vacuum-based harsh deposition methods. To reduce the overall fabrication cost of the thin film solar cells, researcher have devoted great efforts to replace the expensive ITO/AZO by applying silver nanowire (AgNW) or copper nanowire (CuNW)-based nanocomposite as TEs in photovoltaic cells. The emphasis is given on the deposition techniques so that the nanowire-based composite electrode can be deliberately prepared by surface engineering for desired applications. The utilization of AgNW or CuNW-based nanocomposite prepared by different methods of deposition have been explored in the field of photovoltaics as TE. The exhaustive analysis on the deposition methods to prepare nanowire-based TE will benefit the researcher to further achieve new advancement in the field of flexible electronics.