Properties of a Permeation Barrier Material Deposited from Hexamethyl Disiloxane and Oxygen

Abstract

We characterize a recently discovered material that forms an ultra-hermetic environmental barrier layer for the protection of organic light-emitting displays. The layer is deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) from the nontoxic precursor gases, hexamethyl disiloxane and oxygen. We measured the PE-CVD deposition rate, wet and dry etch rates, IR absorption spectrum, wetting contact angle with water, surface roughness and phase shift from atomic force microscopy, coefficient of thermal expansion, elastic modulus, critical tensile strain, indentation hardness, optical absorption spectrum, refractive index, relative dielectric constant, and electrical conduction, many over a range of PE-CVD conditions. The properties reflect a continuous transition from those of plasma-polymerized silicon to those of silicon dioxide prepared by thermal oxidation of silicon. In addition to low permeability, the critical strain, fracture toughness, thermal expansion coefficient, optical transmittance, and refractive index have values that are desirable in a hermetic encapsulant for organic light-emitting displays.

Amorphous silicon thin-film transistors with field-effect mobilities of 2 cm2/V s for electrons and 0.1 cm2/V s for holes

“…5 This dielectric is a homogeneous material that is part-SiO 2 and part-silicone polymer. 6,7 Here we present evidence that employing the new gate dielectric also results in a-Si: H TFTs with unusually high effective electron field-effect mobility eff,e , and comparatively high hole field-effect mobility eff,h . For clarity we distinguish between the free electron ͑e͒ and free hole ͑h͒ mobilities in the bands, 0,e and 0,h , the time-of-flight ͑TOF͒ drift mobilities d,e and d,h , the intrinsic field-effect mobilities int,e and int,h , and the effective field-effect mobilities eff,e and eff,h .…”

Polymeric packaging for fully implantable wireless neural microsensors

“…Our approach is to include material strategies based on the combinations of organic and inorganic thin film multilayers. Here, we outline the adaptation to our implants of a recently developed packaging material based on a nanocomposite of PDMS and SiO 2 [7]. The thin conformal films are produced with a Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) system.…”

“…This system deposits layers of material from a HMDSO and O 2 plasma mixture. The deposited materials have been reported to provide a reliable hermetic permeation barrier for highly water sensitive Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) [7]. …”

10.2: High‐Performance Barrier Films for Flexible Organic Display and Lighting Applications

“…Silicon nitride-based barrier films have been used with success, allowing a display demonstrator with sufficiently wide bezel seal area to be bent over 100 000 repeats to a bending radius of 2 mm without failure 7 . Some of these films are difficult to implement on native polymer substrates, and investigations to create molecularly impermeable thin film barriers have been carried out with varying results [8][9][10][11][12] .…”