Electroless silver plating combined with laser direct writing technology: For the fabrication of flexible silver mesh transparent electrodes

Ultra-thin metal meshes are emerging as potential candidates for ln₂O₃ (ITO) due to their mechanical properties, excellent flexibility and optoelectronic properties. However, the manufacturing of high-performance metal meshes is often accompanied by thin-layer metal deposition processes such as sputtering deposition and vacuum evaporation, as well as the combination of imprinting templates, which increases the complexity of the process and production costs. Herein, we have established a finite element theoretical calculation model for predicting the optoelectronic performance of metal meshes and propose a method based on electroless plating silver combined with laser direct writing to prepare high-quality Ag meshes. It provides a way to achieve rapid and economical production of Ag mesh transparent electrodes. The ultra-thin Ag mesh exhibits excellent transmittance (90.2 % at 550 nm), the transmittance is close to 95 % above the 600 nm wavelength band and the sheet resistance is 13.0 Ω/sq. Furthermore, The Ag mesh exhibits excellent mechanical flexibility, indicated by the fact that the resistance is almost unchanged after 5000 bending cycles.