Transparent Conductive Films

Transparent conductors are currently manufactured by a cost and resource intensive process, i.e., vacuum coating and subsequent etching steps. The overall material yield is typically about 15 to 45%.

This project was financially supported by the state of NRW and co-financed by the European Union.

Our innovative approach:

• mask-less process by printing of structured TCL;
• based on dispersions of nano-particulate indium tin oxide material.

Advantages:

• reduction of process steps and increase of material yield into the range of 70 to 85 %;
• compatibility with variable layouts and designs as well as substrate size and scalability for large areas;
• using direct printing instead of vacuum sputtering and etching.

Features:

• sheet resistance below 100 Ω/□ at a transmittivity above 90 %;
• new enabling technology for all-printed devices, e.g., organic light-emitting diodes, liquid-crystal displays, and AC-electroluminescence panels.