Transparent conductive electrodes are an essential component in many optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, light emitting diodes (LEDs), liquid crystal displays (LCDs), super capacitors, touch screens, and flexible displays. Due to its high optical transparency and high electrical conductivity indium tin oxide (ITO) is the most commonly used transparent conductive electrode (TCE). However it is: prone to cracking on flexible substrates; expensive due to the increasing price of indium; and requires high temperatures during thin film fabrication processes. For new technologies, including flexible solar cells, it is therefore of importance to explore alternative materials like carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene and metal nanowires. Silver nanowires (AgNWs) have attracted much attention as alternative TCEs because of their good electrical conductivity, low synthesis temperatures and flexibility. Chemical methods like: citrate reduction, the silver mirror reaction, the polyol process, seed-mediated growth and light-mediated synthesis have been used to synthesize AgNWs. Most of these synthesis techniques do not have control over the type of product produced, and result in a variety of shapes and sizes at the same time. The polyol process has been known to be an easily manipulated process to get desired products. It represents a number of different methods of synthesising silver nanostructures with a variety of shapes and sizes and therefore the subject of this study.
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