SBIR Phase I: Nanocomposite Barrier Coatings for Organic Electronics

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发新型柔性、透明、光固化的纳米复合屏障涂层，以防止导电聚合物被氧气和水蒸气降解。导电聚合物电子器件可以快速、低成本、灵活、轻便，并且在机械上比无机电子器件更坚固；它们大规模商业化的主要限制是退化问题。解决这个问题的方法是使用一个屏障层来防止氧气和水蒸气到达导电聚合物。目前的屏障涂层不能很好地阻挡氧气和水的渗透，无法使长寿命的导电聚合物器件成为可能，而且对于可卷曲显示器等柔性产品的需求尤其大。纳米复合材料是一种聚合物材料，含有小于100纳米的无机颗粒，具有特殊的阻隔性能，非常适合用于显示应用，因为纳米颗粒的小尺寸使复合材料透明。该项目将利用纳米粒子光固化聚氨酯丙烯酸酯涂层系统，以防止氧气和水蒸气到达底层导电聚合物。需要涂层来延长导电聚合物电子器件的使用寿命，包括：柔性OLED（有机发光二极管）显示器、薄膜晶体管、用作条形码替代品的新型快速扫描芯片、印刷电子电路和轻型电子器件。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop novel flexible, transparent and photocurable nanocomposite barrier coatings to prevent the degradation of conducting polymers by oxygen and water vapor. Conducting polymer electronic devices can be made rapidly, low-cost, flexible, lightweight and mechanically more robust than inorganic electronics; the main limitation to their wide-scale commercialization is the problem with degradation. The solution to this problem is to use a barrier layer to prevent oxygen and water vapor from reaching the conducting polymer. Current barrier coatings do not block oxygen and water permeation well enough to make long lifetime conducting polymer devices possible, and the need is especially great for flexible products such as roll-up displays. Nanocomposites, polymeric materials that contain inorganic particles smaller than 100 nm, have exceptional barrier properties and are ideally suited for display applications because the small size of the nanoparticles allows the composite to be transparent. This project will utilize nanoparticles in a photocurable urethane-acrylate coating system to prevent oxygen and water vapor from reaching the underlying conducting polymer.Coatings are needed to extend the lifetime of conducting polymer electronic devices including: flexible OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays, thin film transistors, new rapid scan chips used as bar-code replacements, printed electronic circuits and lightweight electronics.