Low-Cost Fabrication Method for Thin, Flexible, and Transparent Touch Screen Sensors

Abstract

This study presents a new fabrication method for touch screen sensors using inexpensive, flexible, and transparent polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films. In the proposed method, a transparent capacitive touch sensor array is implemented with two independent axes of invisible electrodes consisting of indium tin oxide (ITO) patterns and bridge electrodes. A low-cost implementation of the bridge electrodes is achieved by using near-field electrospinning (NFES) method for the conductive lines with linewidth of 3-5 mu m. Then, the printed bridge electrode is sintered using green laser without damaging the PET film. It is demonstrated that two transparent electrodes deposited on a single sheet of PET film can detect the touch location by scanning the driving signal while simultaneously measuring the capacitances from the sensing lines connected via bridge electrodes.