Fabrication of Ag nanowire/polymer composite nanocables via direct electrospinning

1D nanocables consisting of metal core with high conductivity and protective polymer shell are promising for electronic devices. In this paper, silver nanowire/polyvinylidene fluoride (AgNW/PVDF) composite nanocables with excellent thermal stability were successfully fabricated by facile direct electrospinning (e-spinning), in which a slurry of AgNWs were uniformly dispersed into N,N-dimethylformamide/acetone solution containing 20% PVDF to form the e-spinning precursor solution. The decomposed temperature of resultant AgNW/PVDF nanocables is up to 460 °C. Interestingly, the as-spun nanocables exhibit more β phase of PVDF than that of pure PVDF nanofibers. The as-spun AgNW/PVDF nanocables could be applied in fields of antibacterial, ultrathin cables and optoelectronic devices. (paper)