AVS 51st International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Monday Sessions
       Session PS2-MoA

Paper PS2-MoA9
Transparent Hybrid Inorganic/Organic Barrier Coatings for Plastic OLED Substrates

Monday, November 15, 2004, 4:40 pm, Room 213B

Session: Emerging Plasma Applications
Presenter: T.W. Kim, GE Global Research Center
Authors: T.W. Kim, GE Global Research Center
M. Schaepkens, GE Advanced Materials
M. Yan, GE Global Research Center
A.G. Erlat, GE Global Research Center
M. Pellow, GE Global Research Center
P.A. McConnelee, GE Global Research Center
T.P. Feist, GE Global Research Center
A.R. Duggal, GE Global Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
The use of plastic film substrates enables fabrication of new applications in the area of flexible opto-electronics, such as flexible display and lighting, using low cost roll-to-roll fabrication technologies. One major limitation of bare plastic film substrates in these applications is the rapid oxygen and moisture diffusion through the substrates and subsequent moisture and oxygen induced degradation of the opto-electronic devices. Recently GE has developed a novel coating technology to reduce the moisture permeation rate through the plastic film substrate below 5x10@super-6@g/m@super2@/day using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Unlike other ultra-high barrier(UHB) coatings comprised of inorganic and organic multilayer, GE's UHB coating comprises a single layer of hybrid inorganic and organic materials. In this single layer, the composition is periodically modulated between silicon oxynitride and silicon oxycarbide. In addition, the transition from one material to the other is continuous, which results in a graded composition structure, so that there is no distinct interface between them. In contrast, other multilayer UHB coatings, where inorganic and organic materials are bound by relatively week van der Waals force, have sharp interface, which sometimes results in delamination of layers especially during the thermal cycle. Hardness and modulus of silicon oxynitride and silicon oxycarbide are tailored such that they are similar to those of typical glasses and thermo plastics, respectively. Modeling studies suggest that the polymer-like silicon oxycarbide enriched zone decouples the pinhole defects in the silicon oxynitride enriched zone compelling tortuous paths for moisture diffusion, and thus reduces the moisture permeation rate by seven orders of magnitude as compared to that of uncoated plastic substrates. GE's UHB coating also has superior visible light transmittance and color neutrality suitable for the use of display and lighting substrates.