Highly conductive and stretching-insensitive transparent electrodes based on CuNWs

Flexible transparent electrode is attracting a lot of attention for various applications due to their versatile ability. However, it is still challenging to apply transparent electrode in stretchable application, because the conductivity will be degraded even lost when the electrode is stretched. Here, a high-performance transparent electrode with stretching-insensitivity is reported. The electrode is obtained by embedding copper nanowires into wrinkled polydimethylsiloxane elastomers via using simple sol–gel transition. The resulting electrode exhibits low sheet resistance of 16 Ω/sq. at an acceptable transmittance of ∼ 74% at visible region, and tensile stability under below 210% strain. In particular, the resistance is almost unchanged after 2500 stretching cycles with a strain of 70%, indicating excellent stretching-insensitively.