High Performance Substrate Embedded Microgrids for High Efficiency, Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diodes

Indium tin oxide (ITO) films are currently the most widely used transparent conductor in optoelectronic applications. However, ITO suffers from several major technological and economic limitations for large area applications such as inadequate performance, high cost, and brittleness. The primary objective of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I/Phase II project is to develop the scalable printing of high-performance substrate embedded metal microgrids as a transparent conductor for large area optoelectronic applications. In Phase I of this grant, we were able to demonstrate the fabrication of substrate embedded metal microgrids with vastly superior performance to ITO. We fabricated metal microgrids with transmission over 90% in the visible range and sheet resistance less than 1 /square with all processing at low temperatures ( 1 mm) can be printed over large areas (> 1010 cm).