RESUMO
Flexible electronics is an emerging thin film based technology enabling completely new types of products and applications compared to conventional electronics. Since the quality of films defines the functionality of fabricated devices, the lack of suitable online manufacturing quality assessment tools has been identified to be a critical bottleneck while upscaling the volume and the yield of thin film electronics manufacturing. In order to solve that problem, a synchronized thermography (ST) based online measurement system was built. Applicability of proposed roll-to-roll compatible ST based system was demonstrated by characterizing a moving plastic film with conductive indium tin oxide on top. Obtained results show that ST can be utilized for online homogeneity characterization and sheet resistance estimation of large area thin films which are not possible with other existing methods.
RESUMO
Measuring conductive thin film properties during production and in end products is a challenge. The main demands for the measurements are: production control, reliability and functionality in final applications. There are several ways to measure thin film quality in a laboratory environment, however these methods are poorly applicable for production facilities. In order to bypass the limitations of existing methods, a simple synchronized heating and IR-imaging based system was implemented. To demonstrate the proposed method, Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) was selected as an example of conductive thin films. PET-ITO films were bent to obtain samples with defects. The proposed method was used and automated signal processing was developed. The results show that the system developed here is suitable for defining breakage types and localizing defects.