Transparent and conductive polymer layers by gas plasma techniques

Lucas Marinus Hendrikus Groenewoud

Research output: ThesisPhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT

174 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Polymers are widely used in a great number of applications because of their general properties such as low density, low cost, and processability. If these properties could be combined with electrical conductivity, this would open up the way to desirable applications such as flexible LCD’s and polymer electronics (cheap, lightweight, etc.). For applications requiring electrical conductivity, the choice of a suitable polymer is limited to polymers with a conjugated chemical structure such as polythiophene. Along the conjugated structures charge (i.e., electricity) is transported by charge carriers. However, the conjugated structure of conductive polymers inherently results in a non-transparent, intractable polymer, which makes them unsuitable for applications requiring transparency and conductivity (e.g., antistatic coatings on photographic films). These disadvantages can be overcome when a thin conductive polymer layer is applied on a polymer that has all desired properties for a specific application, but only lacks conductivity. A very attractive way to do this is by using the plasma technique. With this technique it is possible to modify the surface properties of a substrate, while retaining the transparency and bulk properties of the substrate material. Furthermore, it is a solvent-free, fast and versatile process. Plasma can be used to actually modify the surface top-layer (plasma treatment) of or to deposit a thin conductive layer (plasma polymerisation (PP)) on a transparent substrate. In the present study the plasma technique is used to obtain transparent and conductive polymer systems.
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Twente
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Feijen, J., Supervisor
  • Engbers, G.H.M., Co-Supervisor
Award date10 Nov 2000
Place of PublicationEnschede
Publisher
Print ISBNs90 365 15165
Publication statusPublished - 10 Nov 2000

Keywords

  • IR-9135
  • METIS-105080

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