Highly flexible touch screen panel fabricated with silver-inserted transparent ITO triple-layer structures

• Published in: RSC advances 2018-01, Vol.8 (22), p.11862-1187
• Main Author: Wu, Chia-Ching
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry; Electrodes; Indium tin oxides; Interactive computer systems; Optical properties; Silver; Substrates; Surface roughness; Tin oxides; Touch screens
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/c7ra13550e

A flexible and transparent amorphous-indium tin oxide/silver/crystalline-indium tin oxide (a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO) triple-layer structure was prepared as an electrode for capacitive-type touch screen panels (TSPs). A very thin metal film of silver (Ag) was inserted between two ITO layers, and the triple-layer structures were deposited on a colorless polyimide (CPI) substrate by a sputtering method. It was found that the tunable electrical and optical properties of the a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO triple-layer structures were critically affected by the thickness of the inserted Ag layer. The optimized flexible a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO triple-layer structure has low sheet resistance, high optical transmittance, and low surface roughness. In addition, during the 30 000 bending cycles, the resistance change ( R ) of the flexible a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO triple-layer structure was 4.12%. For environmental reliability, the Δ R values of the flexible a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO triple-layer structure were 2.86% and 0.96% at the environmental temperature of 80 °C-50% and −40 °C, respectively. The above results indicate that the a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO triple-layer structure can be utilized to construct a promising TCO electrode. Finally, flexible and foldable capacitive-type TSPs were fabricated with multiple touch points using the a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO triple-layer electrode. A flexible and transparent amorphous-indium tin oxide/silver/crystalline-indium tin oxide (a-ITO/Ag/c-ITO) triple-layer structure was prepared as an electrode for capacitive-type touch screen panels (TSPs).