AVS 51st International Symposium
    Thin Films Tuesday Sessions
       Session TF1-TuM

Paper TF1-TuM4
Mechanical Performance of Thin Films in Flexible Displays

Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 9:20 am, Room 303C

Session: Thin Films on Flexible and Polymer Substrates
Presenter: J.S. Lewis, MCNC Research and Development Institute
Authors: J.S. Lewis, MCNC Research and Development Institute
S. Grego, MCNC Research and Development Institute
E. Vick, MCNC Research and Development Institute
B. Chalamala, MCNC Research and Development Institute
D. Temple, MCNC Research and Development Institute
Correspondent: Click to Email
In flexible organic light emitting diode (OLED) based displays, brittle thin films are typically used as transparent conductors, permeation barriers, and transistor backplanes. The use of brittle materials in flexible displays requires the understanding of the mechanical limitations of the materials and the various display architectures. We discuss the mechanical limitations of indium tin oxide (ITO) as a transparent conductor, and present results for a more mechanically robust multilayer transparent conductor made of a dielectric-metal-dielectric (DMD) stack. The DMD structures show dramatically improved mechanical properties when subjected to bending both as a function of radius of curvature as well as number of cycles to a fixed radius. Organic light emitting devices fabricated on DMD anodes showed improved performance compared with those made on ITO anodes. The mechanical properties of thin film conductors were investigated by monitoring electrical resistance during flexing, but this approach cannot be used in the analysis of the mechanical failure of transparent thin film permeation barriers. We present a novel approach for etching barrier-coated polymer substrates such that film cracking is readily visible under an optical microscope. We report on the bend test results for sputter-deposited SiO@sub x@N@sub y@ barrier films. This work was supported by the Army Research Laboratory (Contract No. DAAD17-01-C-0085).