Transparent conductive stratiform coating of indium tin oxide
AssigneeCPFilms Inc.
InventorsHassan Memarian, Hitesh Patel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A transparent electrically conductive device which includes an indium tin oxide film is improved by providing an indium tin oxide film which contains a graded stack of individual indium tin oxide layers wherein the atomic percent of tin in the layers can be individually selected. Each indium tin oxide layer of the film contains 1-99 atomic percent tin. Each layer is made by a physical vapor deposition process or by sputter coating. Preferably the film which contains a plurality of indium tin oxide layers is applied to a transparent flexible substrate such as a polymeric sheet. Optional primer layers, hardcoat layers and topcoat layers may be included in the device.
Claims41
In a multi-layered electronic device which comprises a transparent substrate coated with at least one transparent electrically conductive film of indium tin oxide, wherein the improvement comprises:
- the at least one indium tin oxide film has a proportion of indium to tin atoms which is nonuniform, having no continuous gradient of compositional change, throughout the entire thickness of the film, such that the indium and tin atoms are distributed throughout the thickness of said film to form a plurality of electrically conductive indium tin oxide layers, at least one surface of each of the electrically conductive layers is in contact with a surface of one of the other said layers, each of said layers having a finite thickness of 5-10,000 angstroms, wherein the proportion of indium to tin is substantially uniform throughout said finite thickness;
- wherein the proportion of indium to tin in at least one of said layers is different from the proportion of indium to tin in another of said layers, the proportions of indium and tin adding up to unity in each layer with respect to the total amount of indium and tin contained in each layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.