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Barrier Films for Flexible Electronics 2013-2023: Needs, Players, Opportunities
From dyads to flexible glass: encapsulation solutions for displays and photovoltaics
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A large opportunity lies in the development of devices in a flexible form factor that can operate without deterioration in performance, allowing them to be more robust, lightweight and versatile in their use. In order for flexible displays and photovoltaics to be commercially successful, they must be robust enough to survive for the necessary time and conditions required of the device. This condition has been a limitation of many flexible, organic or printable electronics. This highlights the fact that beyond flexibility, printability and functionality, one of the most important requirements is encapsulation as many of the materials used in printed or organic electronic displays are chemically sensitive, and will react with many environmental components such as oxygen and moisture.
These materials can be protected using substrates and barriers such as glass and metal, but this results in a rigid device and does not satisfy the applications demanding flexible devices. Plastic substrates and transparent flexible encapsulation barriers can be used, but these offer little protection to oxygen and water, resulting in the devices rapidly degrading.
In order to achieve device lifetimes of tens of thousands of hours, water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) must be 10-6 g/m2/day, and oxygen transmission rates (OTR) must be < 10-3 cm3/m2/day. For Organic Photovoltaics, the required WVTR is not as stringent as OLEDs require but is still very high at a level of 10-5 g/m2/day. These transmission rates are several orders of magnitude smaller than what is possible using any conventional plastic substrate, and they can also be several orders of magnitude smaller than what can be measured using common equipment designed for this purpose.
Water vapor and oxygen transmission rates of various materials
Source: IDTechEx
For these (and other) reasons, there has been intense interest in developing transparent barrier materials with much lower permeabilities, a market that will reach over $240 Million by 2023.
Barrier layer market forecasts in US$ thousands*
*For the full forecast data please purchase this report
Source: IDTechEx
This report from IDTechEx gives an in-depth review of the needs, emerging solutions and players. It addresses specific topics such as:
- Companies which are active in the development of high barrier films and their achievements on the field to date. The report covers a range of approaches in encapsulation, such as dyads, deposition of inorganic layers on plastic substrates and flexible glass.
- Surface smoothness and defects (such as cracks and pinholes) and the effect that these would have on the barrier behavior of the materials studied.
- Traditional methods of measurement of permeability are reaching the end of their abilities. The MOCON WVTR measurement device, which has been an industry standard, cannot give adequate measurements at the low levels of permeability required for technologies such as organic photovoltaics and OLEDs. Other methods of measurement and equipment developed are being discussed.
- Forecasts for displays, lighting and thin film photovoltaics (in terms of market value as well as area of barrier film sold into different verticals), in order to understand the influence that the development of flexible barriers would have at the mass deployment and adoption of these technologies.
For those developing flexible electronics, seeking materials needs and opportunities, this is a must-read report.
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| 1. | SCOPE |
| 1.1. | Example of a flexible OLED display by Samsung |
| 1.2. | Universal Display Corporation's flexible encapsulation used in OLED lighting panels |
| 1.3. | Flexible solar cell developed by Fraunhofer ISE |
| 2. | INTRODUCTION TO ENCAPSULATION |
| 2.1. | Water vapor and oxygen transmission rates of various materials |
| 2.1. | Schematic diagrams for encapsulated structures a) conventional b) laminated c) deposited in situ |
| 2.2. | Scanning electron micrograph image of a barrier film cross section |
| 2.2. | Requirements of barrier materials |
| 3. | SURFACE SMOOTHNESS - DEFECTS |
| 3.1. | Important considerations of surface smoothness |
| 3.1. | Oxygen transmission rates of polypropylene with various coatings |
| 3.1. | Visual defects of a selection of materials with barrier films highlighted through calcium corrosion test. Optical microscope magnification 10x |
| 3.2. | SEM pictures of the Atmospheric Plasma Glow Discharge deposited silica-like films on polymer substrates. Left: Film with embedded dust particles . Right: uniform film |
| 3.2. | Micro Defects |
| 3.2.1. | Crystalline regions |
| 3.2.2. | Pinholes |
| 3.2.3. | Smoothness / Cracks-Scratches |
| 3.2.4. | Nanodefects |
| 3.3. | OTR as a function of defect density, the correlation between defect density and the oxygen transmission rate |
| 3.4. | SEM image of a pinhole defect formed from a dust particle |
| 3.5. | Scanning electron microscope image of ITO coated on parylene/polymer film |
| 3.6. | The measurement of OLED's lifetime of SiON/PC/ITO and SiON/parylene/PC/parylene/ITO substrate |
| 4. | BARRIER TECHNOLOGIES: PAST DEVELOPMENTS |
| 4.1. | Vitex |
| 4.1. | Examples of polymer multi-layer (PML) surface planarization a) OLED cathode separator structure b) high aspect ratio test structure |
| 4.2. | Vitex multilayer deposition process |
| 4.2. | GE |
| 4.3. | SEM cross section of Vitex Barix material with four dyads |
| 4.4. | Optical transmission of Vitex Barix coating |
| 4.5. | Edge seal barrier formation by deposition through shadow masks |
| 4.6. | Three dimensional barrier structure. Polymer is shown in red, and oxide (barrier) shown in blue |
| 4.7. | Schematic of flexible OLED with hybrid encapsulation |
| 4.8. | Schematic of cross section of graded barrier coating and complete barrier film structure |
| 4.9. | Transparency of GE's UHB film versus wavelength |
| 5. | ADVANCES IN BARRIER MANUFACTURING PROCESSES |
| 5.1. | Scanning electron micrograph of a thin hybrid polymer coating on SiOx deposited on a flexible PET film |
| 5.2. | OTR values achieved with different POLO multilayers |
| 6. | BARRIER ADHESIVES |
| 6.1. | Area sealing |
| 6.2. | DELO's light curing adhesive solution for electrophoretic displays |
| 6.3. | Performance characteristics of DELO's light-curing materials |
| 7. | COMPANY PROFILES |
| 7.1. | Deposition of dyads or inorganic layers on polymer substrates |
| 7.1. | Overview of main performance metrics for some of the most important developers |
| 7.1. | Calcium test results demonstrating superior WVTR performance |
| 7.1.1. | Toppan Printing |
| 7.1.2. | Vitriflex |
| 7.1.3. | Holst Centre - TNO |
| 7.1.4. | Mitsubishi |
| 7.1.5. | Toray Industries Inc |
| 7.1.6. | 3M |
| 7.1.7. | Amcor |
| 7.1.8. | Tera-Barrier |
| 7.2. | 3M barrier film development roadmap |
| 7.2. | Other companies developing polymer-based films |
| 7.2.1. | Fujifilm |
| 7.2.2. | UDC |
| 7.2.3. | Dow Chemical |
| 7.2.4. | Jindal |
| 7.2.5. | Konica Minolta |
| 7.3. | Flexible glass |
| 7.3.1. | Schott AG |
| 7.3.2. | Corning |
| 7.3.3. | Asahi Glass Company (AGC) |
| 7.3.4. | Nippon Electric Glass (NEG) |
| 7.4. | Electron Beam evaporation of Silicon Oxide. |
| 7.4. | Other approaches |
| 7.4.1. | NM Technologies |
| 7.4.2. | 3M |
| 7.5. | Tera Barrier Films design and concept |
| 7.6. | Performance graph of the UDC transparent barrier layer (Universal Barrier Technology) |
| 7.7. | Corning flexible glass showcased at SID 2011 |
| 7.8. | AGC's ultra-thin sheet glass on carrier glass and rolled into a coil |
| 7.9. | OLED lighting panel by NEG |
| 7.10. | Lithium ion battery combined with an a-Si solar cell |
| 8. | ADDRESSABLE MARKET SEGMENTS FOR BARRIER FILM TECHNOLOGIES |
| 8.1. | OLED displays - OLED lighting |
| 8.2. | OTFTs |
| 8.3. | Liquid Crystal Displays - Electrophoretic Displays |
| 8.4. | OPV |
| 8.5. | CIGS - amorphous Si |
| 9. | BARRIER MEASUREMENTS |
| 9.1. | Lower detection limits of several barrier performance measurement techniques |
| 9.1. | The Calcium test |
| 9.1. | 2.25 m m2 area of a 50 nm layer of Ca deposited onto barrier coated PET viewed through the substrate. i. Image after 1632 h of exposure to atmosphere; ii. Image analysis whereby the grey scale of Ca degradation is processed to yie |
| 9.2. | A simple set-up for measuring optical transmission of calcium test cells |
| 9.2. | MOCON |
| 9.3. | Illinois Instruments |
| 9.3. | MOCON's Aquatran™ Model 138 |
| 9.4. | MOCON's Aquatran™ schematic |
| 9.4. | Fluorescent Tracers |
| 9.5. | Black Spot Analysis |
| 9.5. | MOCON's OX-TRAN® Model 2/1039 |
| 9.6. | Silica induced black spots, letters A & B mark black spots with a centralized black dot (silica particle) |
| 9.6. | Tritium Test |
| 9.7. | CEA |
| 9.7. | Black spot formation and growth mechanisms |
| 9.8. | General Atomics HTO WVTR testing apparatus |
| 9.8. | 3M |
| 9.9. | IMRE |
| 9.10. | Mass Spectroscopy - gas permeation (WVTR & OTR potential applications) |
| 10. | FORECASTS FOR BARRIER FILMS FOR FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS 2013-2023 |
| 10.1. | Leading market drivers 2023 |
| 10.1. | The potential significance of organic and printed inorganic electronics |
| 10.1. | Leading market drivers 2023 |
| 10.2. | Barrier layer area forecasts 2013-2023 in square meters |
| 10.2. | Barrier films market size |
| 10.2. | Barrier layer area forecasts 2013-2023 in square meters |
| 10.3. | Barrier layer market forecasts 2013-2023 in US$ thousands |
| 10.3. | Flexible glass or inorganic layers on plastic substrates? |
| 10.3. | Barrier layer market forecasts 2013-2023 in US$ thousands |
| 10.4. | Corning's Flexible glass with protective tabbing on the edges |
| 11. | CONCLUSIONS |
| 11.1. | Examples of rigid e-readers by Amazon and Barnes & Noble |
| 11.2. | The Wexler flexible e-reader |
| 11.3. | Lithium test sample with thin film encapsulation after 24 hrs in the damp heat test at 85°C/85% relative humidity. B. Similar lithium test sample after 200 hrs in the same damp heat test with optimized barrier structure |
| APPENDIX 1: ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITION | |
| APPENDIX 2: IDTECHEX PUBLICATIONS AND CONSULTANCY | |
| TABLES | |
| FIGURES |
By 2023, flexible barrier manufacturing will be a market of more than US$240 million
Report Statistics
| Pages | 82 |
|---|---|
| Tables | 8 |
| Figures | 50 |
| Forecasts to | 2023 |
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