A Bio-inspired Transparent Laminated Composite Film for Flexible Green Optoelectronics.

Herein, we report a new version of bio-inspired chitin nanofiber transparent laminated composite film (HCLaminate) made of the siloxane hybrid materials (hybrimers) reinforced with chitin nanofibers (ChNF), which mimics the nanofiber-matrix structure of hierarchical biocomposites. Our HCLaminate is produced via vacuum bag compressing and subsequent UV-curing of the matrix resin-impregnated ChNF transparent paper (ChNF paper). It is worthwhile to note that this new type of ChNF based transparent substrate film retains the strengths of the original ChNF paper and compensates for the ChNF paper's drawbacks as a flexible transparent substrate. As a results, compared to high-performance synthetic plastic films such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyether sulfone (PES), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), and polyimide (PI), our HCLaminate is characterized to exhibit extremely smooth surface topography, outstanding optical clarity, high elastic modulus, and high dimensional stability etc. To prove our HCLaminate as a substrate film, we use it to fabricate flexible perovskite solar cells and a touch screen panel. As far as we know, this work first demonstrates flexible optoelectronics such as flexible perovskite solar cells and touch screen panel, actually fabricated on a composite film made of ChNF. Given its desirable macroscopic properties, we envision our HCLaminate being utilized as a transparent substrate film for flexible green optoelectronics.