Abstract
A widely used application of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD) methods is the preparation of permeation barrier layers against water vapour. Especially in the field of organic electronics, these films are highly demanded as such devices are very sensitive to moisture and oxygen. In this work, multilayers of aluminium oxide (AlO x ) and plasma polymer (PP) were coated on polyethylene naphthalate substrates by plasma-enhanced ALD and plasma-enhanced CVD at 80℃ in the same reactor, respectively. As precursor, trimethylaluminium was used together with oxygen radicals in order to prepare AlO x , and benzene served as precursor to deposit the PP. This hybrid structure allows the decoupling of defects between the single AlO x layers and extends the permeation path for water molecules towards the entire barrier film. Furthermore, the combination of two plasma techniques in a single reactor system enables short process times without vacuum breaks. Single aluminium oxide films by plasma-enhanced ALD were compared to thermally grown layers and showed a significantly better barrier performance. The water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) was determined by means of electrical calcium tests. For a multilayer with 3.5 dyads of 25-nm AlO x and 125-nm PP, a WVTR of 1.2 × 10 −3 gm−2d−1 at 60℃ and 90% relative humidity could be observed.
Highlights
Organic optoelectronic devices provide interesting features as they can be applied on inexpensive and flexible large-area substrates [1,2,3]
Besides the deposition of aluminium oxide (AlOx) and plasma polymer (PP) layers, the system enables inductively coupled plasmaenhanced chemical vapour deposition (ICPECVD) of high-quality oxides and nitride films at low temperatures (80°C to 130°C) on different substrate types and sizes. This combination allows the deposition of layer stacks from atomic layer deposition (ALD) with low growth rate and ICPECVD with high growth rate in the same chamber
Aluminium oxide films were grown with a growth per cycle (GPC) of 0.18 nm/cycle
Summary
Organic optoelectronic devices provide interesting features as they can be applied on inexpensive and flexible large-area substrates [1,2,3]. These devices tend to degrade if they are exposed to atmospheric oxygen and moisture [4,5,6,7]. It is hard to deposit the electrode without any local defects which are mainly caused by particles formed during the deposition process. The defects serve as gas diffusion paths into the device. Oxygen and water molecules can move through these imperfections and diffuse along the interface between electrode and organic material as well as into the (1)
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