Aligning silver nanowire films with cellulose nanocrystal nematicsShow others and affiliations
2021 (English)In: Optical Materials Express, E-ISSN 2159-3930, Vol. 11, no 10, p. 3321-3331Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Anisotropic plasmonic films are a desirable material for many optoelectronic ap-plications. Here, we propose a method to align silver nanowires (AgNWs) with the help of uniaxial nematic alignment of cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) liquid crystals (LCs) that can preserve their LC orientation in solid film. AgNWs are doped into uniaxial nematic CNC LCs, where AgNWs are oriented parallel to the director of shear-aligned CNCs without aggregation. The AgNWs orientations are determined by polarized optical and dark field microscopic images. The alignment of AgNWs is characterized by the scalar order parameter S , and the measured S around 0.59 for aligned AgNWs presents an improved anisotropy with the assistance of uniaxial nematic CNC LCs. The electrical property of aligned AgNWs is examined by the four-probe method and exhibits the maximum ratio of anisotropic sheet resistance around 5, consistent with the simulated percolation probability performance using the Monte Carlo computation. Our results show that the uniaxial nematic CNC LCs can act as an effective template in aligning AgNWs, which is compatible with 3D printing and microfluidics, and allows for the preparation of low-cost, innovative optical materials and devices.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
The Optical Society , 2021. Vol. 11, no 10, p. 3321-3331
National Category
Materials Chemistry Physical Chemistry Polymer Chemistry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-304280DOI: 10.1364/OME.434475ISI: 000705308400002Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85115065693OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-304280DiVA, id: diva2:1607360
Note
QC 20211101
2021-11-012021-11-012024-09-04Bibliographically approved