Highly flexible porous indium-tin-oxide coating with enhanced atomic oxygen and electrostatic discharge resistance

Abstract

Polyimides (PI) are commonly used in spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to their flexibility. However, they are susceptible to erosion caused by atomic oxygen (AO) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) induced by plasma in the harsh LEO environment. Indium-tin-oxide (ITO), owing to its excellent electrostatic and AO resistance, has emerged as the most promising inorganic protective coating for PI in LEO applications. But the inherent rigidity of ITO and the high-temperature annealing process commonly required for synthesis make it challenging to employ ITO as flexible polymer substrates. In this work, we have synthesized the porous ITO layer with a low-temperature (≤150 °C) method and combined it with layer double hydroxides (LDHs) to enhance the flexibility, AO resistance, and ESD protection of the coating. The porous ITO in combination with LDHs layers effectively improve the flexibility (after 20,000 bending cycles without failure problem), AO resistance (erosion yield down to -0.102 × 10−26 cm3/atom under an exposure dose of 5.22 × 1021 atoms/cm2) and ESD resistance properties (sheet resistance around 202 kΩ/sq). The synthesis method proposed avoids the high-temperature annealing and the residual stress effect on the coating's flexibility. This work provides an efficient approach to realizing flexible and protective coating on polymers for long-lasting spacecraft electronic devices in low Earth orbit.