Improved electrical conductivity of PEDOT-based electrode films hybridized with silver nanowires

• Improved conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxy thiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) electrode films.
• Hybridization of silver nanowires and PEDOT:PSS chains.
• The excellent performance with a low sheet resistance of 15 Ω/sq at 85% transparent.

Improved conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)-based electrode films were assembled by hybridization with charged silver nanowires (Ag NWs). The hybrid layers consisting of PEDOT chains interconnected between random Ag-NW networks were found to have better conductivity than PEDOT alone or intrinsic pure Ag NW networks. Various concentrations of Ag NWs with 30 nm size in diameter were incorporated into the PEDOT chains matrix. The optimized PEDOT/Ag NW hybrid layers exhibited excellent performance with a low sheet resistance of 15 Ω/sq, corresponds to the electrical conductivity of approximately 8500 S/cm, at 90% transparence when PEDOT was hybridized with 40 wt% Ag NWs. The organic solar cell devices deposited on these hybrid electrodes show a performance equivalent to that of the devices based on a conventional ITO electrode.