Large‐Area Inkjet‐Printed Flexible Hybrid Electrodes with Photonic Sintered Silver Grids/High Conductive Polymer

Abstract

AbstractThe field of printed organic electronics has not only made flexible devices accessible but also allows the production process toward a high throughput industrial scale. The current research involves the inkjet‐printing of an indium tin oxide‐free large‐area flexible hybrid electrode compose of a high conductivity organic layer (PEDOT: PSS) as a main electrode and inorganic silver nanoparticles‐based grid/film for the auxiliary electrode. The current bottleneck in the roll‐to‐roll production of printed electronics is the time required for the conductive inks to dry and sinter. Flash sintering is used to dry nano‐silver conductive ink to 77.6 m Ω □−1 sheet resistance in <20 ms, the quickest annealing procedure, without damaging flexible substrates. Flexible organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) are created with a large active area (500 mm2) to demonstrate the efficacy of the flexible hybrid electrodes and the excellent bending stability (4 mm bending radius) of OLEDs. Maximum current efficiency of 19.58 cd A−1 and a maximum luminescence of 8708 cd m−2 at a low turn‐on voltage of 3.1 V for the small‐area (16 mm2) OLEDs are achieved. This method is promising for reducing indium consumption and paving the way for creating new high throughout hybrid electrodes for large‐area flexible printed electronics.