Researchers use polymer as anode material for displays

Researchers at the Ames Laboratory of the US Department of Energy have devised a new method for using an existing polymer as an anode material for displays, among other things. Indium-tin-oxide is currently used for this.

Indium-tin-oxide is both transparent and conductive and because of these properties it has been used for many years as an anode material in screens. However, a major disadvantage is that indium is a scarce metal, which is also important for the production of solar panels. It is not for nothing that the US Department of Energy has the availability of the raw material labeled as near-critical due to its wide field of application.

The researchers at the Ames Laboratory now have a new method developed to use a conductive plastic as anode material. By making use of, among other things, a multi-layer construction of the material and by applying special treatments to it, it appears that the polymer with the name pedot:pss 44 percent more conductive than ITO and sufficiently transparent.

An additional advantage of using the conductive plastic is that the anodes can be flexible. This is especially important for the future generation of OLED panels based on a flexible substrate with the roll-to-roll production method. Current ITO anodes are fragile.

The special properties of the conductive plastic had been known for 15 years, but with the conventional production method, the conductivity and transparency were not sufficient to serve as a replacement for ITO.