Ultra Thin Flexible Glass Substrates

Abstract

AbstractNew applications in the electronics market ranging from foldable displays in mobile phones to wearable displays in clothes generate a high demand for flexible materials especially for substrates. The upcoming OLED technology shows some advantages in comparison with conventional LCDs and enables real flexible or shaped displays. Moreover, the wearable displays have a barely need for flexible electronic circuits. At a first glance polymer foils are the materials of choice for flexible substrates and for electronic circuits but in general they suffer from thermal instability as well as from high permeation rates for gases and water and hence chemical stability of critical materials such as LC's or low work function materials. In contrast, even ultra thin glass sheets have excellent barrier properties and show sufficient bending properties if they are thinner than 100μm.Flexible glass substrates down to a thickness of 50μm have been developed. The deposition of an organic coating helps to overcome significantly the lack of mechanical stability. Therefore, our flexible glass substrates can be used in conventional display manufacturing processes which include several thin film process steps. Moreover, they are suited for production of flexible PCB's.