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Thread: “etching” transparent conductor on transparent plastic film or glass?

  1. #11
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    How about making a mask that is negative and putting that on plastic. Vapor deposition ito remove mask. You can laser cut the mask. Vapor dep not sure who or where. Can it be made into a paint?

  2. #12
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    How about making a mask that is negative and putting that on plastic. Vapor deposition ito remove mask. You can laser cut the mask. Vapor dep not sure who or where. Can it be made into a paint?

    Found this
    A. A fairly common practice in making glass bottles, aircraft windshields and other glass (in which the end use requires abrasion resistance) is to spray the hot glass with a tin compound such as Tin IV Chloride. The result is a transparent tin oxide coating which is very adherent and electrically conductive. This should be adequate for your needs.

    Caveat: Be careful to use proper safety measures to protect yourself and others when working with toxic materials.

    Dale Woika
    - Bellefonte, Pennsylvania

    - - - Updated - - -

    So mask glass and tin chloride coat

  3. #13
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    Here is a method of sputtering a transparent conductive film:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OEz_e9C4KM

  4. #14
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    Here is my current idea.
    Please check of any issues you might spot or improvements.

    1) Get etch resist on ordinary paper with a laser printer (not directly on PET as fusing temperature will melt it)
    2) cold transfer the toner etch resist from the paper to ITO-PET via a acetone and alcohol mixture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBIxvwZ_0og
    3) quickly rinse with water so acetone wont degrade the PET
    4) use an etchant to remove the unneeded ITO
    5) use acetone again to remove the etch resist and leave the etched ITO on the PET.

    This will only work if the toner powder sticks to the ITO coating as well as it does stick on copper.

    Other options such as conductive trasparent ink directly onto PET via inkjet printer or a $200 device such as this is a better option without the need of a etch resist and toxic etchants but I haven't gotten a response from any of the companies marketing conductive transparent inks for a while...
    Other methods such as sputtering are beyond my reach.
    I also could try transfering an "etch resist" as described above and spraying an ordinary PET film, not ITO coated, with tin oxide like kecked suggests but you mention the glass it is sprayed on is hot and PET deforms at 120 C, also I don't know how i spray a liquid so evenly.
    Laser cutting the etch resist wont work as the walls will be too thin to be able to move it onto the PET with the shape intact.
    Last edited by Yerkat; 01-03-2018 at 02:31.

  5. #15
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    Should work but test for bridges. You might need to run a knife between the fingers to make sure nothing short

  6. #16
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    In my case there will probably be thousands of thin lanes so I'll try testing for short between the two electrodes. As for their individual lanes probably best to test few and then just inspect with a microscope, unless theres another way to test individual lanes in a reasonable amount of time.

  7. #17
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    short of x ray inspection nope.

  8. #18
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    Ok. Anyway I'll post my results soon.

    For anyone else reading, the discussion continues because of transparent PET film, most of the solutions mentioned previously will work with ITO coated glass as glass is more durable to chemical threatment and heat.

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