Analytical modeling of orientation effects in random nanowire networks

Abstract

Films made from random nanowire arrays are an attractive choice for electronics requiring flexible transparent conductive films. However, thus far there has been no unified theory for predicting their electrical conductivity. In particular, the effects of orientation distribution on network conductivity remain poorly understood. We present a simplified analytical model for random nanowire network electrical conductivity that is the first to accurately capture the effects of arbitrary nanowire orientation distributions on conductivity. Our model is an upper bound and converges to the true conductivity as nanowire density grows. The model replaces Monte Carlo sampling with an asymptotically faster computation and in practice can be computed much more quickly than standard computational models. The success of our approximation provides novel theoretical insight into how nanowire orientation affects electrical conductivity, illuminating directions for future research.

arXiv comment9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Effective resistance of random percolating networks of stick nanowires : functional dependence on elementary physical parameters
• Electrical conductance of two-dimensional composites with embedded rodlike fillers: an analytical consideration and comparison of two computational approaches
• Simulation of the electrical conductivity of two-dimensional films with aligned rod-like conductive fillers: effect of the filler length dispersity

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Effective medium theory for the electrical conductivity of random metallic nanowire networks
• Lattice model for percolation on a plane of partially aligned sticks with length dispersity