Thin Ag films adhesive onto flexible substrates with excellent properties for multi-application

Here, thin Ag films with excellent properties were successfully prepared on flexible substrates through surface grafting and assembling followed by simple spray-assisted deposition process. The constructed molecule brushes provide the interfacial adhesion for Ag layers onto polymer substrates. The mechanical and electrical properties of the conductive Ag coated PET could be tuned by changing the spraying passes. As the electromagnetic interference shielding material, the composite PET possesses a highest shielding efficiency of 45 dB. In addition, the Ag coated PET with the thickness of 0.1 mm would maintain the 72% electrical conductivity even been folded even at a minimum diameter of 0.2 mm. It was demonstrated that uniform and fine cracks would generate when the Ag coated PET was stretching, but Ag films still retain continuous networks to maintain the high electronic conductivity even stretching to 100%. Simple finite element modeling results prove that the stress by stretching would concentrate in corner of the crack and the deformation is mainly at stress side. The Ag layers were also produced on TPU substrates to detect the stretching, showing its potential applications for strain sensors and health monitoring systems.