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Self-limited plasmonic welding of silver nanowire junctions

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 241–249 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nanoscience provides many strategies to construct high-performance materials and devices, including solar cells, thermoelectrics, sensors, transistors, and transparent electrodes. Bottom-up fabrication facilitates large-scale chemical synthesis without the need for patterning and etching processes that waste material and create surface defects. However, assembly and contacting procedures still require further development. Here, we demonstrate a light-induced plasmonic nanowelding technique to assemble metallic nanowires into large interconnected networks. The small gaps that form naturally at nanowire junctions enable effective light concentration and heating at the point where the wires need to be joined together. The extreme sensitivity of the heating efficiency on the junction geometry causes the welding process to self-limit when a physical connection between the wires is made. The localized nature of the heating prevents damage to low-thermal-budget substrates such as plastics and polymer solar cells. This work opens new avenues to control light, heat and mass transport at the nanoscale.

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Figure 1: Optical nanowelding set-up and scanning electron microscope (SEM) images before and after illumination.
Figure 2: Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images before and after illumination.
Figure 3: Selected area electron diffraction (SAED) of silver nanowire junctions before and after illumination.
Figure 4: Finite element method simulations of optical heat generation at silver nanowire junctions during the nanowelding process.
Figure 5: Optical and electrical properties of silver nanowire junctions before and after illumination.
Figure 6: Applications of local plasmonic heating on temperature-sensitive materials and devices.

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Acknowledgements

This publication was based on work supported by the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics (CAMP) (Award No KUS-C1-015-21), funded by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Y.C. acknowledges support from KAUST Investigator Award (No. KUS-I1-001-12). We gratefully acknowledge valuable discussions with P. Nordlander on the optical coupling of metallic nanostructures. E.C.G. acknowledges partial support from the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4045, USA

    Erik C. Garnett, Wenshan Cai, Judy J. Cha, Fakhruddin Mahmood, Stephen T. Connor, M. Greyson Christoforo, Yi Cui, Michael D. McGehee & Mark L. Brongersma

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

    Fakhruddin Mahmood

  3. Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025-7015, USA

    Yi Cui

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  1. Erik C. Garnett
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Contributions

E.C.G. and M.L.B. conceived of the experiments, W.C. performed the FEM simulations, J.J.C. performed the TEM, S.T.C. synthesized the silver nanowires, F.M. assisted with the dark-field scattering measurements, M.G.C. built the spray-coating set-up and deposited the silver nanowires on the polymer solar cells and Saran wrap, and E.C.G. performed all other experiments. M.L.B., Y.C. and M.D.M. supervised the project. E.C.G. and M.L.B. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mark L. Brongersma.

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Garnett, E., Cai, W., Cha, J. et al. Self-limited plasmonic welding of silver nanowire junctions. Nature Mater 11, 241–249 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3238

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