The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), a UK-based technology innovation centre, and the UK’s National Centre for Printable Electronics have commissioned two world-leading atomic layer deposition tools from Beneq for developing conformal nano-scale coatings for electronic and opto-electronic device and encapsulation based applications.
The recent installation allows companies working with CPI to develop and scale up a variety of device and encapsulation materials from laboratory scale through to roll-to-roll pilot production.
Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is applied as a specialist barrier coating technique for the protection of opto-electronic devices, i.e. to add moisture ultra-barrier protection layers to flexible polymer substrates.
These properties make them ideal for numerous kinds of critical applications that utilise flexible films such as Organic Light Emitting Devices (OLED), flexible display screens, photovoltaic cells and wearable electronics, to name but a few.
As the cost of conventional multilayer barrier films is typically prohibitively high for large area application, a thin layer of inorganic barrier film produced using roll-to-roll ALD technology provides a feasible cost-effective solution for the commercialisation of these novel applications.
Alf Smith, Business Development Manager at CPI, said: ‘The roll-to-roll ALD system at CPI is truly world-leading and allows clients working with CPI the opportunity to develop, optimise and scale up their ALD materials from the lab, through to proof of concept and then to the volumes needed for commercial market adoption.’
