Guest_Jim_* Posted May 18, 2015 Posted May 18, 2015 If you are reading this on a flatscreen display, like an LCD or OLED display, chances are you are staring through indium tin oxide (ITO) a transparent conductor. While ITO has the necessary transparency and conductivity, it is also expensive and fragile, so many are working on replacements. Among the possibilities are networks of nanowires, which are flexible and cheap as well as conductive and transparent, and now researchers at Lehigh University have made a discovery that should improve them. The orientation of nanowires in the network is, as you would expect, very important to the network's properties. If you think that a network with strictly oriented nanowires would be the best conductor though, you would be wrong. The Lehigh researchers have built computers models of the networks and found that those with a degree of randomness are actually better conductors. The nanowires still need some restrictions on their orientation, but just the right amount will beat out heavily ordered networks. To test the model, the researchers applied it to previously published papers, which is a common practice, and found that it accurately explains the results. This discovery could lead to improvements for many optoelectronic devices and flexible electronics. Source: EurekAlert! Back to original news post Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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