Copper-Nickel Nanowires

Ever wonder how the screen of an Ipad works. Me too, but I really don't know. This post, however, is just as interesting as that topic.

Copper-nickel nanowires might be the future of touch screens and for printable technologies. The nanowires are flexible and cheap and have the same properties as the current technologies in touchscreens (indium tin oxide, or ITO).

Another practical use of copper-nickel nanowires is that they can make solar panels much cheaper because it has all the necessary properties, is cheaper, and even more durable.

To start, indium tin oxide is the current leader in the field of touch screens. It is a substance that is good for touch screens because it is highly conductive (electrically) and is also transparent. However, it is rare and fairly expensive. 

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Indium tin oxide glasses

A possible replacement was copper nanowires. Nanowires are wires at the nanoscale and are different from nanotubes because they are not hollow. Originally, when these nanowires were being created, it was found that after a little bit of use, the screen would actually become yellow, and then eventually green, like the statue of liberty. For obvious reasons, this type of screen was not put into commerce. However, recently at Duke University, a slight change to this original idea was made to solve some of the copper nanowire's problems.

Duke University creates the copper-nickel nanowire

Then the scientists thought about how pennies turned green, but not nickels. By adding nickel into their nanowires, they were able to take off many of the problems from the copper nanowires. One such advantage that was created by adding nickel was that it lost 50% of its conductivity in 400 years, much more than the indium tin oxide screens.Unfortunately, this new cheap alternative will probably not replace its predecessor for a simple reason; it cannot yet conduct enough electricity for our common day-to-day technologies.

Even though this is a big issue of the copper-nickel nanowires, it would be quite biased to ignore the possibilities presented with the Copper nanowires. Copper nanowires can be used in printable technologies because it is flexible, cheap, and durable. This printable technology can be used for for shipping boxes to scan it, in magazines, and much more. 

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Copper Nickel Nanowires

It can also be used  as a way to make interactive clothing, which is a very tangent to this topic, but interesting none-the less.