The Mechanical Reliability of Sputter-Coated Indium Tin Oxide Polyester Substrates for Flexible Display and Touchscreen Applications

Cairns, Darran R.; Paine, David C.; Crawford, Gregory P.

doi:10.1557/proc-666-f3.24

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The crack density as a function of the applied tensile strain in Structures 1 to 3 is shown in Figure 3 In real applications of flexible electronics, the strain level should be less than that for the initiation of channel cracks in functional layers, and that strain level is always less than 3% in ITO-based electrodes. [15] Other than mechanical failure, conductive failure, defined as the dramatic increase in electrical resistance during deformation, is also employed to evaluate the electro-mechanical quality of electrodes in a more direct and effective way. Figure 3(b) plots the normalized change in electrical resistance as a function of the applied tensile strain.…”

Section: In Situ Sem Observation Of Channel Cracks In Ito Film Under mentioning

confidence: 99%

In Situ Electro‐Mechanical Experiments and Mechanics Modeling of Fracture in Indium Tin Oxide‐Based Multilayer Electrodes

et al. 2012

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Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is one of the most widely used transparent conducting oxides in applications such as electronic displays and solar cells. The low resistivity and high transmittance of ITO have led to the recent explorations of polymer-supported ITO films as the transparent electrodes in flexible electronics. Flexible devices are often subject to repeated large deformation. While compliant polymer substrates can sustain large strain, brittle ITO films often fracture at a small strain. The cracking of ITO electrodes leads to loss of electrical conductance, posing crucial challenge to the reliability of flexible devices. As an effort to address this challenge, here we report a multilayer structural design of ITO-based electrodes with enhanced electro-mechanical durability. In particular, our in situ electro-mechanical experiments and coherent mechanics modeling reveal that, a top protective polymeric coating above and an intermediate polymeric layer below the ITO electrode can effectively reduce the driving force for cracking of the ITO electrode. The findings of the present paper suggest a feasible solution to durable transparent electrodes for flexible electronics.The multilayer structural design of ITO-based electrodes in the present study is inspired by the recent progress in designing high performance permeation barriers for flexible electronics. While flexible electronics is being developed toward an array of promising applications (e.g., paper like displays and sensitive electronic skins, etc.), [1][2][3][4][5][6] the service life of flexible devices is limited due to the vulnerability of functional organic layers in flexible devices to the attack of environmental water vapor and oxygen. High performance COMMUNICATION Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films are widely used as transparent electrodes in electronic displays and solar cells. However, the small fracture strain of brittle ITO films poses significant challenge to their applications in flexible electronics devices that often undergo large deformation. Inspired by recent development of inorganic/organic hybrid permeation barriers for flexible electronics, we design and fabricate ITO-based multilayer electrodes with enhanced electro-mechanical durability. In situ electro-mechanical experiments of five structural designs of ITO-based multilayer electrodes are performed to investigate the evolution of crack density and the corresponding variance of electrical resistance of such electrodes. A coherent mechanics model is established to determine the driving force for crack propagation in the ITO layer in these electrodes. The mechanics model suggests that a top protective polymeric coating above and an intermediate polymeric layer below the ITO layer can effectively enhance the mechanical durability of the ITO electrodes by reducing the crack driving force up to 10-folds. The modeling results offer mechanistic understanding of the in situ experimental measurements of the critical fracture strains of the five types of ITO-based multilayer electrodes. The findin...

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Section: In Situ Sem Observation Of Channel Cracks In Ito Film Under mentioning

confidence: 99%

In Situ Electro‐Mechanical Experiments and Mechanics Modeling of Fracture in Indium Tin Oxide‐Based Multilayer Electrodes

et al. 2012

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“…The hardness of the films is relevant to film strength, durability during handling, and potentially wear resistance in applications where the coating is exposed [11,36,37] . For comparison, the hardness of ITO is reported to be 6.5 GPa [9] .…”

Section: Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tuning the physical properties of amorphous In-Zn-Sn-O thin films using combinatorial sputtering

et al. 2016

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“…The improvement of optical/electrical property after annealing could be explained as the result of interaction between crack growth and [33], [34]. Moreover, the reliability is an important issue for industrial products [35]- [37]. There were three reliability tests deployed for the fabricated TPF, including high-temperature storage (HTS, 80°C for 240 hrs.…”

Section: B Film Fabrication and Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

High Performance EGFET-Based pH Sensor Utilizing Low-Cost Industrial-Grade Touch Panel Film as the Gate Structure

Lin

2015

IEEE Sensors J.

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This paper develops a high performance extended-gate field-effect-transistor-based pH sensor utilizing industrial-grade touch panel film (TPF) as the sensing material. The TPF is composed of a polyethylene terephthalate substrate coated with an indium tin oxide, a silicon dioxide, and a niobium pentoxide (ITO/SiO 2 /Nb 2 O 5 ) layers. Since industrial roll-to-roll process is used to produce the TPF such that the cost and the quality for the film are very competitive for producing disposable sensors. Results show the developed sensor exhibits high sensitivity of 59.2 mV/pH in the range of pH from 3 to 13 with a good linearity of R 2 = 0.9948. It also shows excellent sensing performance including ultrafast response (∼1 s), good repeatability (variation ∼2%), and stability (variation ∼1%). When interfered with high concentration Na + ions (0.1 M) by adding normal saline water, the response increases slightly and sustain linearity. In addition, the performance of the developed sensor owing to sensing area change is evaluated that presents good linearity and consistent in the sensing areas range 11 2 ∼20 2 mm 2 . Accordingly, the developed TPF-based pH sensor has presented its potentials for rapid and low-cost hydrogen ion detections.Index Terms-EGFET, touch panel film, pH sensor, ITO, hydrogen ion.

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The Mechanical Reliability of Sputter-Coated Indium Tin Oxide Polyester Substrates for Flexible Display and Touchscreen Applications

Cited by 22 publications

References 10 publications

In Situ Electro‐Mechanical Experiments and Mechanics Modeling of Fracture in Indium Tin Oxide‐Based Multilayer Electrodes

In Situ Electro‐Mechanical Experiments and Mechanics Modeling of Fracture in Indium Tin Oxide‐Based Multilayer Electrodes

Tuning the physical properties of amorphous In-Zn-Sn-O thin films using combinatorial sputtering

High Performance EGFET-Based pH Sensor Utilizing Low-Cost Industrial-Grade Touch Panel Film as the Gate Structure

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