Pekka Soininen

Roll-to-roll atomic layer deposition process for flexible electronics encapsulation applications

At present flexible electronic devices are under extensive development and, among them, flexible organic light-emitting diode displays are the closest to a large market deployment. One of the remaining unsolved challenges is high throughput production of impermeable flexible transparent barrier layers that protect sensitive light-emitting materials against ambient moisture. The present studies deal with the adaptation of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) process to high-throughput roll-to-roll production using the spatial ALD concept. We report the development of such a process for the deposition of 20u2009nm thickness Al2O3 diffusion barrier layers on 500u2009mm wide polymer webs. The process uses trimethylaluminum and water as precursors at a substrate temperature of 105u2009°C. The observation of self-limiting film growth behavior and uniformity of thickness confirms the ALD growth mechanism. Water vapor transmission rates for 20u2009nm Al2O3 films deposited on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrates were measured a...

Rotary Spatial Plasma Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition — An enabling manufacturing technology for µm-thick ALD films

Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is well known for its high film quality and high conformality, but limited by the low deposition rate. Beneq proposes a novel approach using Rotary Spatial Plasma Enhanced ALD process, which can reach deposition rates 10× higher than traditional pulsed ALD. This technology also enables use of PEALD in batch mode with high throughput. This paper describes the technology in more details.