Ag nanowire electrodes have attracted considerable attention because of their potential applications in next-generation flexible electronics. However, there is a paucity of studies on the mechanical properties of Ag nanowire electrodes subjected to a large number of bending cycles. In this study, the effects of the substrate on the mechanical behavior of Ag nanowire electrodes were studied for a high bending frequency. The mechanical reliability of the Ag nanowire electrodes fabricated on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate was better than that for a polyimide (PI) substrate; the increase in the resistance of the PET-based Ag nanowire electrode was 1.07%, while that of the PI-based one was 1.23%. Nanoindentation tests showed that the elastic modulus of PI was larger than that of PET. This resulted in a lower bending strain on PET-based Ag nanowire electrodes compared to those on PI-based ones, because of the smaller distance from the neutral plane of the PET-based system. Our study showed that the mechanical properties of the substrate influenced the strain imposed on the thin layer on the substrates, which, in turn, determines the mechanical reliability of the thin-layer/substrate multilayer system.

中文翻译：

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大量弯曲循环下基材力学性能对银纳米线电极柔韧性的影响

银纳米线电极因其在下一代柔性电子产品中的潜在应用而引起了广泛关注。然而，关于经受大量弯曲循环的银纳米线电极的机械性能的研究很少。在这项研究中，研究了基板在高弯曲频率下对 Ag 纳米线电极机械行为的影响。在聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）衬底上制备的银纳米线电极的机械可靠性优于聚酰亚胺（PI）衬底；PET基银纳米线电极的电阻增加了1.07%，而PI基电极的电阻增加了1.23%。纳米压痕测试表明，PI 的弹性模量大于 PET 的弹性模量。与基于 PI 的电极相比，这导致基于 PET 的银纳米线电极的弯曲应变更低，因为与基于 PET 的系统的中性面的距离更小。我们的研究表明，基板的机械性能会影响施加在基板上薄层上的应变，这反过来又决定了薄层/基板多层系统的机械可靠性。