High-performance ITO thin films for on-cell touch sensor of foldable OLED displays

ITO thin films must have good electro-optical and mechanical characteristics to use them as integrated touch sensors for flexible OLED displays. We fabricated ITO thin films on a separation-layer-coated glass substrate under various deposition or annealing conditions, and then transferred them to cyclo-olefin polymer films to evaluate their electro-optical and mechanical characteristics. ITO films with a thickness of approximately 136 nm deposited at 250°C showed a sheet resistance of 36 Ω/□, light transmittance of 88%, and 2.4% of elongation at break. The 136 nm thick ITO films deposited at 150 °C and transferred on 50 μm thick COP film survived 500 h of 85 °C, 85% relative humidity under 180-degree bending preservation test, endured at 200,000-time repetitive bending test with a curvature radius of 1.5 mm. These high-performance ITO thin films can be applied to fabricate on-cell touch sensors for foldable OLED displays.