Patent Application
20130105206
This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2011-0111271 filed on Oct. 28, 2011, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transparent panel in which electrical conductivity is inactivated in at least certain regions of a conductive polymer layer formed on one surface of a transparent substrate to form an electrode having a predetermined pattern, and a refractive index matching layer is formed in the regions in which the electrical conductivity is inactivated, such that the pattern may be prevented from being visible and the electrode may be formed without a step, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A transparent panel, an apparatus manufactured by forming electrodes having a predetermined pattern using a transparent conductive material having excellent light transmissivity on a transparent substrate also having excellent light transmissivity, is widely used in a flat panel display (FPD) such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device, and in an input apparatus such as a touch screen, or the like. Particularly, recently, as a majority of home televisions are produced as a flat panel display and users of smart phones, navigation apparatuses, and the like, including a touch screen as an input apparatus steadily increase, the demand for a transparent panel has also increased.
Touch screens used in electronic devices maybe largely divided into resistive type touch screens and capacitive type touch screens, according to a method of sensing a touch. Of these, the capacitive type touch screen has advantages in that it has a relatively long lifespan and various input methods may be easily implemented therein, such that an adoption rate thereof has markedly increased. Particularly, a multi-touch interface may more easily be implemented in the capacitive type touch screen, as compared to the resistive type touch screen, such that the capacitive type touch screen is widely used in devices such as smart phones, and the like.
Both the resistive type touch screen and the capacitive type touch screen include a transparent substrate and a transparent electrode formed on one surface of the transparent substrate. The transparent electrode may generally be formed by depositing a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide (ITO), zinc oxide (ZnO), indium zinc oxide (IZO), or the like, on one surface of the transparent substrate in a scheme such as a sputtering scheme, or the like, and then etching the deposited transparent conductive material to have a desired pattern. However, in this case, regions in which the transparent conductive material is formed and regions in which the transparent conductive material is removed are present on one surface of the transparent substrate, such that pattern visibility may occur due to differences in light transmissivity and refractive index between the transparent electrode and the transparent substrate.
An aspect of the present invention provides a transparent substrate in which a conductive polymer layer is formed on one surface of a transparent substrate, electrical conductivity is inactivated in at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer in order to pattern a transparent electrode, and a refractive index matching layer is formed on the at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer in which the electrical conductivity is inactivated, such that the transparent electrode may be formed without a step and pattern visibility may be significantly reduced, and a method of manufacturing the same.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a transparent panel including: a transparent substrate; a conductive polymer layer formed over the entire surface of the transparent substrate; and a refractive index matching layer formed in at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer, wherein the at least some regions in which the refractive index matching layer is formed correspond to regions in which electrical conductivity is inactivated in the conductive polymer layer.
The conductive polymer layer may include a first region having electrical conductivity and a second region in which electrical conductivity is inactivated, and the first and second regions may have the same thickness.
The first and second regions of the conductive polymer layer may have different sheet resistance values.
The first and second regions of the conductive polymer layer have a ratio of a light absorption rate of 80 to 120% therebetween.
The reflective index matching layer may include ultraviolet (UV) ink.
The conductive polymer layer may include at least one of polythiophene, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT), polyaniline, polypyrrole, and polyacetylene.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of manufacturing a transparent panel, the method including: preparing a transparent substrate; forming a conductive polymer layer on at least one surface of the transparent substrate; inactivating electrical conductivity in at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer; and forming a refractive index matching layer in the at least some regions in which the electrical conductivity is inactivated.
The forming of the conductive polymer layer may include forming the conductive polymer layer over the entirety of the at least one surface of the transparent substrate.
The inactivating of the electrical conductivity may include inactivating the electrical conductivity by processing the at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer using an oxidizing agent.
The oxidizing agent may include at least one of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), potassium permanganate (KMnO4), potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7), and amino acid.
The inactivating of the electrical conductivity may include inactivating the electrical conductivity by performing a thermal treatment on the at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer.
The inactivating of the electrical conductivity may include performing the thermal treatment on the at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer at a temperature of 50 to 150° C. for 5 seconds to 60 minutes.
The above and other aspects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. These embodiments will be described in detail in order to allow those skilled in the art to practice the present invention. It should be appreciated that various embodiments of the present invention are different, but are not necessarily exclusive.
For example, specific shapes, configurations, and characteristics described in an embodiment of the present invention may be implemented in another embodiment without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention. In addition, it should be understood that positions and arrangements of individual components in each disclosed embodiment may be changed without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the detailed description provided below should not be construed as being restrictive. In addition, the scope of the present invention is defined only by the accompanying claims and their equivalents if appropriate. Similar reference numerals will be used to describe elements having the same or similar functions throughout the accompanying drawings.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art may easily practice the present invention.
As shown in
According to the present embodiment, the conductive polymer used to form the transparent electrode may include at least one of polythiophene, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT), polyaniline, polypyrrole, and polyacetylene. The conductive polymer may have a sheet resistance level of several hundreds of Ω/sq and be formed on one surface of the transparent substrate. As an example, a conductive polymer layer may be formed over the entirety of one surface of the transparent substrate, and electrical conductivity may be inactivated in at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer in order to form an electrode having a desired pattern.
Hereinafter, a case in which the transparent panel according to the present embodiment is used in a touch screen will be described for convenience of explanation. However, it is to be noted that the transparent panel according to the present embodiment may be used in various apparatuses other than the touch screen.
Although
Referring to
The first electrodes 220 for sensing the position of the touch in the Y-axis direction and the second electrodes 230 for sensing the position of the touch in the X-axis direction may be formed in a manner such that empty regions between the plurality of first electrodes 220 are filled with the plurality of second electrodes 230 and empty regions between the plurality of second electrodes 230 are filled with the plurality of first electrodes 220 as shown in
Meanwhile, a predetermined reflective index matching layer may be formed in the regions of the first and second conductive polymer layers in which electrical conductivity is inactivated. The refractive index matching layer maybe formed in order to prevent pattern visibility of the sensing electrodes 220 and 230 due to a difference in refractive index between the regions in which electrical conductivity is inactivated and the regions in which electrical conductivity is activated, and may include a material in which dye, pigment, or the like, is mixed with ultraviolet (UV) ink. As described above, the refractive index matching layer is formed in the regions in which electrical conductivity is inactivated in the conductive polymer layer to limit a light absorption rate between the regions in which electrical conductivity is inactivated and the regions in which electrical conductivity is activated to be in the range of 80 to 120%, whereby the pattern visibility of the sensing electrodes 220 and 230 may be significantly reduced.
The transparent panel 300 may include a display apparatus 350 adhered to a lower portion thereof by a gasket 370, having an air gap 360 therebetween, and include a cover lens 340 formed on an upper portion thereof, wherein the cover lens 340 is formed of an acrylic material such as tempered glass or PMMA. The air gap formed between the transparent panel 300 and the display apparatus 350 may reduce electrical noise generated in the display apparatus 350 to thereby be transferred to the transparent panel 300.
The first conductive polymer layer 320 on which first electrodes for sensing a position of a touch in a Y-axis direction is to be formed may be formed on the first substrate 310-1, and the second conductive polymer layer 330 on which second electrodes for sensing a position of a touch in an X-axis direction is to be formed may be formed on the second substrate 310-2. As shown in
The first and second substrates 310-1 and 310-2 may be formed of a material having excellent light transmissivity such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate (PC), polyethersulfone (PES), polyimide (PI), tempered glass, or the like, as described above. When the first and second conductive polymer layers 320 and 330 are formed and electrical conductivity is inactivated in some regions 324 and 334 thereof to thereby form the first and second electrodes, respectively, the first and second substrates 310-1 and 310-2 may be adhered to each other by a transparent adhesive layer such as an optical clear adhesive (OCA).
As shown in
Referring to
After the transparent substrate 410 is prepared, a conductive polymer layer 420 is formed on at least one surface of the transparent substrate 410 (S510). Referring to
After the conductive polymer layer 420 is formed, electrical conductivity is inactivated in at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer 420 (S520). As shown in
The inactivating of electrical conductivity of the conductive polymer layer 420 in operation 5520 may include processing some regions of the conductive polymer layer 420 using an oxidizing agent 430. Here, the oxidizing agent may include at least one of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), potassium permanganate (KMnO4), potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7), and amino acid. When it is assumed that the conductive polymer layer 420 includes poly-(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) is used as the oxidizing agent 430, electrical conductivity is inactivated through a process as represented by the following Chemical Formula 1:
Referring to Chemical Formula 1, a thiophene ring is included in a chemical structure of PEDOT, and bonding of the thiophene ring is partially broken by performing oxidation using sodium hypochlorite and water, such that electrical conductivity is inactivated. Therefore, the conductive polymer layer 420 shown in
The first region 440 having electrical conductivity and the second region 445 in which electrical conductivity is inactivated have different light transmissivities and refractive indices. Therefore, a boundary between the first region 440 and the second region 445 may be visually discerned by a user, whereby pattern visibility may occur. In order to significantly reduce or prevent the pattern visibility, a refractive index matching layer 450 may be formed in the second region 445 (S530). The refractive index matching layer 450 may include a mixture of UV ink and dye, or the like.
A wavelength of light within a visible region, able to be visually discerned by a person, may be in the range of 380 nm to 780 nm. Therefore, as shown in
As set forth above, according to embodiments of the present invention, a conductive polymer layer is formed on one surface of a transparent substrate, electrical conductivity is inactivated in at least some regions of the conductive polymer layer, and a refractive index matching layer is then formed in the regions in which electrical conductivity is inactivated. Therefore, a transparent electrode may be formed without a step and pattern visibility may be significantly reduced.
While the present invention has been shown and described in connection with the embodiments, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2011-0111271 | Oct 2011 | KR | national |
