Bio-inspired semi-transparent silver nanowire conductor based on a vein network with excellent electromechanical and photothermal properties

A bio-inspired conductive binary-network of vein-silver nanowires (AgNWs) was embedded in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) to prepare a semi-transparent stretchable conductor (vein-AgNWs-PDMS) by a simple dipping process. The special conductive structure was constructed by using veins with a porous structure as an ideal skeleton to load AgNW networks, which allowed the vein-AgNWs-PDMS composite to show a low sheet resistance of 1 Ω sq⁻¹ with 74% transmittance. The figure of merit of vein-AgNWs-PDMS is as high as 2502 and can be adjusted easily by controlling the times of the dipping cycle. Furthermore, the vein-AgNWs-PDMS conductor can retain high conductivity after 150% mechanical elongation and exhibit excellent electromechanical stability in repeated stretch/release tests with 60% strain (500 cycles). As an example of an application, patterned light-emitting diode (LED) arrays using the vein-AgNWs-PDMS conductors have been fabricated, and worked well under deformation. Moreover, the photo-thermal properties of the vein-AgNWs-PDMS composite have been demonstrated by a position heating experiment using near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation and the generated heat can be effectively dissipated through the vein network to avoid local overheating. Due to the high-performance and facile fabrication process, the vein-AgNWs-PDMS conductors will have multifunctional applications in stretchable electronic devices.