Simultaneously increasing electric conductance and optical transmission represents a key challenge for developing high-quality transparent metallic film (TMF). In a paper just published in ACS Applied Electronic Materials, Prof. Yiping Zhao and his collaborators have used nanosphere lithography and oblique angle deposition to show that large-area silver nanograting on nanohole structures can meet this challenge. The fabricated nanograting-nanohole hybrid structure exhibits an excellent sheet resistance as low as 4.53 /sq, an optical transmission of 75.4% from visible to near IR, and a high Haacke number up to 13.1, which is superior to that of previously reported metal nanohole networks or TMFs. Both the electric conductance and optical transparency are anisotropic and can be tuned by the nanohole diameter, lattice spacing, and the polarization of incident light. In particular, the transparency wavelength bands for different polarized lights are significantly different, which can be used for dual functionalities. The anisotropic electronic property is explained by a two-dimensional resistor network model, and the observed optical responses match well with the results from finite-difference time-domain calculations.
For details, please read “Highly conductive nanograting-nanohole structures with tunable and dual-band spectral transparency” (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.1c00443)
