Fabrication of Pure Copper Nanofiber with Active Sputtering Environment as Transparent Electrode

<![CDATA[By fabricating a copper nano-fiber mesh, a high quality, low cost, and flexible transparent electrode can be produced. The transparent electrodes are widely used in electro-optic devices such as screens, touch screens and solar cells. The metallic nano-fiber mesh is superior to ITO in terms of flexibility and low cost raw material, and superior to graphene or carbon nanotubes in terms of low junction resistance by high aspect ratio. The copper is much cheaper than gold and silver while has a very good conductivity. But the main problem is oxidation of nano-layer in sputtering process. Basically, expensive methods such as high vacuum deposition can prevent the oxidation. But in this study, with the use of the active atmosphere and the addition of hydrogen to argon gas in a sputtering chamber, the purity of sputtered copper is much better, so that its conductivity is improved up to 5 times.]]>