Abstract
A healable transparent capacitive touch screen sensor has been fabricated based on a healable silver nanowire-polymer composite electrode. The composite electrode features a layer of silver nanowire percolation network embedded into the surface layer of a polymer substrate comprising an ultrathin soldering polymer layer to confine the nanowires to the surface of a healable Diels-Alder cycloaddition copolymer and to attain low contact resistance between the nanowires. The composite electrode has a figure-of-merit sheet resistance of 18 ω/sq with 80% transmittance at 550 nm. A surface crack cut on the conductive surface with 18 ω is healed by heating at 100 °C, and the sheet resistance recovers to 21 ω in 6 min. A healable touch screen sensor with an array of 8 × 8 capacitive sensing points is prepared by stacking two composite films patterned with 8 rows and 8 columns of coupling electrodes at 90° angle. After deliberate damage, the coupling electrodes recover touch sensing function upon heating at 80 °C for 30 s. A capacitive touch screen based on Arduino is demonstrated capable of performing quick recovery from malfunction caused by a razor blade cutting. After four cycles of cutting and healing, the sensor array remains functional.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 12874-12882 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | ACS nano |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 23 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- capacitive touch sensor
- self-healing
- silver nanowire
- transparent composite electrode
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science
- General Engineering
- General Physics and Astronomy