Profs. I. Goldthorpe, L. Servant & M. Tréguer-Delapierre

The collaboration between Prof. Irene Goldthorpe from the University of Waterloo (UW) and Profs. Mona Tréguer-Delapierre and Laurent Servant from the University of Bordeaux (UBx) is successful in many ways. The differing but complementary expertise of the team in metal nanostructure synthesis (Tréguer-Delapierre), electronic materials and devices (Goldthorpe), and spectroscopy characterization techniques (Servant) is ideal for research on the interdisciplinary topic of transparent electrodes. These electrodes, which are material layers that are both electrically conductive and optically transparent, are a necessary component in many ubiquitous electronic devices including electronic displays, touchscreens, solar cells and light emitting diodes. 

Currently, indium tin oxide is predominantly used as the transparent electrode in these devices. This material, however, is expensive, requires high temperatures and vacuum for deposition, and is brittle, the latter making it unsuitable for up-and-coming flexible electronic devices. The team is studying and advancing the viability of a promising alternative transparent electrode material that is mechanically flexible and printable at room temperature in atmosphere using low-cost techniques: silver nanowire networks.   

An industrially relevant, fast, low-temperature and high volume process was developed to synthesize some of the longest silver nanowires ever reported. These nanowires, in turn, allowed the team to achieve nanowire transparent electrodes with the best transparency and conductivity values ever achieved in the literature with a scalable process. The team also uncovered the factors causing the problematic low lifetimes of nanowire electrodes and developed an effective passivation method that significantly increases these lifetimes. The results have been published in four journal papers so far and presented at international conferences.

The team co-supervised Dr. Alexandra Madeira in a co-tutelle doctoral program. Alexandra completed her PhD program and research at both universities. Waterloo student Jonathan Atkinson conducted a portion of his PhD research at UBx. In addition to these students gaining rich experience in different laboratories and cultures, both the French and Canadian teams obtained long-term benefits from the exchange of knowledge and skills. The professors have visited each other’s universities several times, with Prof. Goldthorpe being a Visiting Scholar at Bordeaux in the summer of 2018. The collaboration was initially supported by a Bordeaux-Waterloo joint research grant funded by UWaterloo and the Initiative of Excellence for the University of Bordeaux. This project was titled “Enhancing the Performance of Transparent Electrodes Through the Design of New Silver Nanostructured Networks”. Emerging results permitted the team to obtain additional funding from industry, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France) and Mitacs (Canada). The team continues to advance research on transparent electrodes with on-going projects involving additional collaborators. 

“My collaboration with the University of Bordeaux has been a tremendous opportunity, leading to exciting innovative research and valuable professional growth.”

(Prof. I. Goldthorpe)

“We have developed some 'bridges' in between the two universities. Some undergraduate and PhD students have already crossed them have planned to visit the next semester. We believe that these research experiences abroad will be fantastic for each of them.”

(Prof. M. Tréguer-Delapierre)