Plasmon-enhanced nanosoldering of silver nanoparticles for high-conductive nanowires electrodes

The silver nanowires (Ag NWs) electrodes, which consist of incompact Ag nanoparticles (NPs) formed by multi-photon photoreduction, usually have poor conductivities. An effective strategy for enhancing conductivity of the Ag NWs electrodes is plasmon-enhanced nanosoldering (PLNS) by laser irradiation. Here, plasmon-enhanced photothermal effect is used to locally solder Ag NPs and then aggregates of these NPs grow into large irregular particles in PLNS process. Finite element method (FEM) simulations indicate that the soldering process is triggered by localized surface plasmon-induced electric field enhancement at “hot-spots”. The effectiveness of PLNS for enhancing conductivity depends on laser power density and irradiation time. By optimizing the conditions of PLNS, the electrical conductivity of Ag NWs is significantly enhanced and the conductivity σs is increased to 2.45×107 S/m, which is about 39% of the bulk Ag. This PLNS of Ag NWs provides an efficient and cost-effective technique to rapidly produce large-area metal nanowire electrodes and capacitors with high conductivity, excellent uniformity, and good flexibility.