The Effects of Corrosion, Fatigue, and Corrosion-fatigue of Multilayer Coated Polyesters for Flexible Electronics Applications

We investigated the electrical and optical properties of ITO/Ag-alloy/ITO films in a corrosive NaCl solution. The effects of bending fatigue combined with aggressive environments provided by the salt solution were also studied. It is shown that exposure to the salt solution can cause the ITO/Ag-alloy/ITO performance to degrade over time. In addition, greater changes in electrical resistance and lower values of optical transmittance were observed at higher concentrations of the salt solution. The combination of stress and corrosion by the aqueous NaCl solution was found to significantly reduce the conductivity of the ITO/Ag-alloy/ITO film. Furthermore, it is shown that the presence of structural defects in the deposited films can provide a driving force to form Ag agglomerations that, in turn, degrade the conductivity of the ITO/Ag-alloy/ITO film. This suggests that defects in the film should be minimized to avoid excessive corrosion.