Thin Multilayer of Graphene as an Alternative to Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) in Touchscreens and Wearable Electronics

Abstract

Along with achieving great technological advances, graphene has achieved a great amount of popularity and interest from the world of science because of its enhanced physical, mechanical and thermal properties. The research output on graphene and its applications in various fields will be more. This investigation focusses on the fundamental aspects of graphene, which are exploring the flexible touch screens such as Smart Phones, Ipad, Smart TV. The effect of these results of new graphene displays are discussed. With the aid of experimental techniques involving pre-surface treatment, adhesion promoters, graphene layer thickness and theoretical modelling using Comsol, results are achieved. Different parameters were studied such as pre-cleaning time of the glass, weight of graphene in the graphene-ethanol suspension, use of adhesion promoter such as PMMA. It was found that optimum parameters are longer cleaning times (15 minutes), lower graphene weights (<0.032 g) and use of PMMA. In the modelling, layer by layer embedding of graphene over a glass substrate was analysed. Different characteristics were studied such as optical transparency, adhesion and electrical resistivity. Modelling of graphene over glass gave the results that layer thickness needs to be optimized with lower layer thickness (<2 * 10−5 cm) being better.