Because traditional plastics have very poor conductivity, they are often used for insulation, which makes them a shielding material for materials such as wires and circuit boards. But scientists have always hoped to change this situation by adding other materials, that is, to impart electrical conductivity to plastics. Now, a research team has proposed a promising possibility, hoping that it can be used for large touch screens or solar cells that can be installed on windows.
This new material was developed by electrical and computer engineers at the University of Michigan based on early work in the field. The team has previously demonstrated how to add a very thin layer of silver to the plastic plate to make it conductive, but doing so requires some cost, which reduces the light transmittance by about 10%.
One way to improve the transparency of plastics is to apply anti-reflective coatings, but these coatings usually do not have conductive properties. In this regard, the researchers believe that by carefully mixing metals and multilayer materials, they may have solved this problem.
The transparent conductive plastic they created consisted of a very thin layer of silver and plastic. In addition, the plastic layer contained a small amount of copper and was only 6.5 nanometers thick. The conductive layer is sandwiched between two "dielectric" materials, one is alumina and the other is zinc oxide.
Because these materials can effectively pass light through the material, their light transmittance is higher than that of plastic alone, the former reaches 88.4%, and the latter 88.1%.
"We have developed a method to make coatings with high transparency, high conductivity, low haze, excellent flexibility, easy to make, and have good compatibility with different surfaces," the research leader, Electronic Engineering And Jay Guo, a professor of computer science, said.
Next, the team will explore how to use this material as a transparent conductor for solar cells.