METHOD FOR MAKING AN INTERACTIVE INFORMATION DEVICE AND PRODUCT PRODUCED THEREBY

Abstract

A method and product produced by the method for forming an interactive information device with a conductively coated panel includes forming a reduced contrast increased light transmitting, conductively coated panel by providing a transparent substrate and applying a transparent, conductive layer on at least one surface of the substrate in a predetermined pattern with at least one area having a conductive layer thereon and a second area without a conductive layer. The method further includes applying a transparent layer of a metal oxide such that the metal oxide layer, such as silicon dioxide, overlies both areas whereby visible contrast between the areas is reduced and light transmission through the coated panel is increased. The coated panel is then attached to an electro-optic display for displaying information when electricity is applied thereto.

Claims

1. An interactive information display device, comprising: a substrate; a transparent conductive layer deposited on one surface of said substrate in a pattern such that there is at least one area having a conductive layer thereon and an adjacent second area without a conductive layer on said one substrate surface; and a transparent layer of metal oxide having a refractive index at the sodium D line of at least 2.0 and less than 2.2 and at certain thickness overlying both said one area and adjacent second area of said one substrate surface.

2. The interactive information display device of claim 1, wherein the thickness of said transparent layer of metal oxide is within the range of 100 Angstroms to 50,000 Angstroms.

3. The interactive information display device of claim 2, wherein the thickness and the refractive index of the metal oxide layer in combination reduces the contrast between said one area and said adjacent second area, and improves the light transmission of said interactive information display device.

4. The interactive information display device of claim 1, wherein the thickness of said transparent layer of metal oxide is within the range of 500 Angstroms to 10,000 Angstroms.

5. The interactive information display device of claim 4, wherein the thickness and the refractive index of the metal oxide layer in combination reduces the contrast between said one area and said adjacent second area, and improves the light transmission of said interactive information display device.

6. The interactive information display device of claim 1, wherein the thickness of said transparent layer of metal oxide is within the range of 600 Angstroms to 1400 Angstroms.

7. The interactive information display device of claim 6, wherein the thickness and the refractive index of the metal oxide layer in combination reduces the contrast between said one area and said adjacent second area, and improves the light transmission of said interactive information display device.

8. The interactive information display device of claim 1, wherein said metal oxide layer comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of silicon dioxide, tantalum oxide, zirconium oxide, titanium dioxide and tungsten oxide.

9. The interactive information display device of claim 8, wherein the thickness of said transparent layer of metal oxide is within the range of 100 Angstroms to 50,000 Angstroms; and the thickness and the refractive index of the metal oxide layer in combination reduces the contrast between said one area and said adjacent second area, and improves the light transmission of said interactive information display device.

10. The interactive information display device of claim 8, wherein the thickness of said transparent layer of metal oxide is within the range of 500 Angstroms to 10,000 Angstroms; and the thickness and the refractive index of the metal oxide layer in combination reduces the contrast between said one area and said adjacent second area, and improves the light transmission of said interactive information display device.

11. The interactive information display device of claim 8, wherein the thickness of said transparent layer of metal oxide is within the range of 600 Angstroms to 1400 Angstroms; and the thickness and the refractive index of the metal oxide layer in combination reduces the contrast between said one area and said adjacent second area, and improves the light transmission of said interactive information display device.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0013] FIG. 1 is a plan view of a conventional panel for an interactive device having both conductively coated and non-conductively coated areas on one surface of the substrate;

[0014] FIG. 2 is a sectional side elevation of a conductively coated panel in accordance with the present invention including a patterned, conductive thin film and an outermost film of metal oxide deposited thereover on each surface of the panel; and

[0015] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a preferred method of the present invention for making the conductively panel/interactive information device of FIG. 2.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0016] More specifically, and as shown in FIG. 2, the invention relates to an improved, reduced contrast, increased transmission conductively coated panel 60 comprising a transparent substrate 10 having a first surface 12 and a second surface 14. Substrate 10, may be transparent glass, such as soda lime glass, or, may be an optical plastic comprising as conductively coated cyclic olefin copolymer plastic substrate as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/946,22S, filed Sep. 5, 2001, entitled IMPROVED PLASTIC SUBSTRATE FOR INFORMATION DEVICES AND METHOD FOR MAKING SAME, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Such rigid plastic substrate may be formed from a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) such as is available from Ticonca of Summit, under the trade name “Topas.” Cyclic olefin-containing resins provide an unproved material for a rigid, transparent conductively coated substrate suitable for use in an information display. The improved information display incorporating the improved plastic substrate is lightweight, durable, flex resistant, dimensionally stable and break resistant as compared to other, more conventional substrates.

[0017] A rigid plastic substrate can be formed by extrusion, casting or injection molding. When injection molding, is used such as when forming a substrate from a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC), a non-planar curved (spherical or multiradius) part can be formed, optionally with at least one, surface roughened (such as by roughening/patterning a surface of the tool cavity used for injection molding) so as to have a light-diffusing, anti-glare property.

[0018] A transparent, plastic substrate such as one formed from cyclic olefin polymer resin can be used to form a rigid panel or back plate for use in a resistive membrane touch device where the cyclic olefin panel functions as a transparent back plate for a flexible, conductive, transparent touch member assembly as is also described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/946,228, filed Sep. 5, 2001, incorporated by reference above.

[0019] A transparent, conductive, patterned thin film such as indium tin oxide or doped tin oxide, such as Sb or F doped tin oxide, or doped zinc oxide) 20 is deposited in a predetermined pattern with coated and non-coated was on the first surface 12 of substrate 10. Preferably, a second transparent, conductive, patterned thin film 30 (such as indium tin oxide or doped tin oxide, such as Sb or F doped tin oxide, or doped zinc oxide) is also deposited on the second surface 14 of substrate 10 also in a predetermined pattern with coated and non-coated areas. A first surface outermost film 40 comprises a transparent silicon dioxide film deposited on transparent conductive patterned film 20. The preferred range of thickness of the silicon dioxide (SiO.sub.2) film is about 600 to about 1400 Angstroms thick, most preferred about 800 to about 1200 angstroms thick. Silicon dioxide film 40 is at least about 600 Angstroms thick in those areas overlying conductive film 20. The second surface outermost film 50 also preferably comprises a transparent silicon dioxide film deposited on transparent conductive patterned film 30 and may have the same or differing thickness as film 40. Layers 40 and 50 have a refractive index at the Sodium D line of at least about 2.00 and less than about 2.2. Although metal oxides are preferred, the present invention encompasses use of non-metal oxide layers such as boron oxide or the like.

[0020] Other metal oxide materials may also be used for layers 40 and 50 including tantalum oxide, zirconium oxide, titanium dioxide, tungsten oxide, or similar transition metal and non-transition metal oxides. Such materials would be used in thicknesses within the mar of about 100 to about 50,000 Angstroms. For example, for a metal oxide, layers 40, 50 preferably are at least about 500 Angstroms to about 10,000 Angstroms thick in those areas overlying conductive films 20 or 30.

[0021] Multilayer stack 20 reduces glare from light incident, thereon for direction X and multilayer stack 30 reduces glare from light incident thereon for direction Y. Silicon dioxide (SiO.sub.2) layers 40 and 50 increase visible light transmission through panel 60 (that typically comprises a transparent glass substrate) as compared to uncoated glass by at least about 1.5% T; and preferably by at least about 4% T; and most preferably by at least about 6% T.

[0022] Light transmission through improved reduced-glare conductive coated panel 60 is at least about 85% T; more preferably at least about 90% T, and most preferably at least about 95% T (transmission measured using an integrating sphere across the visible spectrum). Optical inhomogeneity is reduced between the transparent conductively coated regions and the non-coated regions rendering these delineation regions essentially visually indistinguishable by a viewer so that there is no substantial contrast apparent when viewed in reflected light.

[0023] In some forms of the invention, it may be useful to incorporate a reduced glare, conductively coated panel haying increased visible light transmission and suitable for use as a touch screen, digitizer panel or substrate in an information display and incorporating one or more thin film interference layers forming a thin film stack on opposite surfaces of a substrate such as that described herein and a transparent electrically conductive coating on the outer most layer of one or both of the thin film stacks such as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/883,654, filed Jun. 18, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,878,240, issued Sep. 7, 2004, entitled ENHANCED LIGHT TRANSMISSION CONDUCTIVE COATED TRANSPARENT SUBSTRATE AND METHOD FOR MAKING SAME; the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated, by reference herein.

[0024] In some forms of the present invention, it may also be useful to incorporate a flexible, transparent, conductively coated layer with a rigid, transparent, conductively coated substrate suck as that described herein to form an interactive information device and to include spacer members or dots as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/954,139 filed Sep. 17, 2001, now U.S. Pat No. 6,627,918, issued Sep. 30, 2003, entitled SPACER ELEMENTS FOR INTERACTIVE INFORMATION DEVICES AND METHOD FOR MAKING SAME, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein as set forth above. Such an assembly includes an improved process and materials for producing uniformly dispersed, consistent, durable, essentially non-visible, fixed substrate-interpane-spacer elements (for example “spacer dots”) for spacing opposing conductive surfaces of the flexible top sheet and rigid bottom sheet or substrate of such an interactive information device.

[0025] Preferably, at least layers 40 and 50 are deposited by wet chemical deposition (such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,725,957. Varaprasad et al. etc or such as disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,900,275; 5,838,483; 5,604,626; 5,525,264; and 5,277,986 all commonly assigned to Donnelly Corporation of Holland, Mich., which are all incorporated by reference herein in their entireties). For example, a preferred precursor solution comprises about 18.75% tetraethylorthosilicate about 2.23% acetic anhydride, about 3.63% water, about 0.079% phosphoric acid (85% acid in aqueous solution), about 0.91% 2,4-pentanedione, about 1.24% 1-pentanol, about 19.38% ethyl acetate, about 15% ethanol, about 17.5% methanol and about 21.25% acetone. (all component concentrations are expressed as weight percentages of the total weight of the solution). This equates to a concentration of tetraethylorthosilicate precursor, expressed as equivalents of silica, of about 5.4%.

[0026] The preferred process, and as shown in FIG. 3, for the manufacture of digitizer panels starts with using conventional glass cleaning techniques for the preparation of the raw glass lite that typically is provided as a sheet or panel of dimension typically four (4) inches diagonal or greater. Lites can be processed in the bent or fiat product configuration, and lites can be processed in the final product size, or in what is known as the stocksheet configuration allowing for the subsequent cutting from and manufacture of multiple touch devices from one lite. Prior to the deposition of the transparent conductive thin film on the second surface, a pattern of mask material is applied to the raw glass using a silk screen coating method, 325-mesh stainless steel screen. This allows for the removal of the thin film conductor, indium tin oxide for example, following the deposition of the conductive thin film. The conductive thin film could also be removed in the required configuration using a post deletion method such as by laser ablation or post chemical etching with photolithography. The conductive thin film, preferably indium tin oxide, is then deposited on the second surface of the lite, preferably by the sputtering physical vapor deposition technique or evaporation physical vapor deposition technique. A thick film conductive electrode pattern, typically a silver glass frit such as Dupont 7713, is then applied using a silk screen coating method, 325 stainless steel mesh silk screen with, glass fit as requited based on the digitizer design. The thin film conductor and the thick conductor are then cured using a conventional baking process, such as 480 degrees C. for 60 minutes. The thin film conductor may be chemically reduced in an inert forming gas curing environment. The substrate is then washed using conventional glass washing procedures. Prior to the deposition of the transparent conductive thin film on the first surface, a pattern of a mask material is applied to the raw glass using a silk screen coating method, 325-mesh stainless steel screen. This allows removal of the thin film conductor, indium tin oxide for example, following the deposition of the conductive film. The conductive thin film could also be removed in the required configuration using a post deletion method such as by laser ablation or chemical etching such as with photolithography or, with a screened chemical etch paste (typically an acid based paste). The conductive thin film, indium tin oxide, is then deposited on the first surface of the lite, preferably by the sputtering physical vapor deposition technique or evaporation physical vapor deposition technique. A thick film conductive electrode pattern, typically a silver glass fit such as Dupont 7713 is then applied using a silk screen coating method, 325 stainless steel mesh silk screen with glass fit as required based on the digitizer design. The thin film conductor and the thick film conductor are then cured using a conventional baking process, such as 480 degrees C. for 60 minutes, followed by a chemical reduction in an inert forming gas at 290 degrees C. for 30 minutes. The double sided conductively coated substrate is then washed using conventional glass washing techniques. Both the first and second surfaces are then coated with a silicon dioxide thin film using a dip coating technique. The double-sided silicon dioxide film is then cured using a conventional baking process, such as 480 degrees C. for 60 minutes. The thin film conductor under the silicon dioxide may be chemically reduced in an inert forming gas curing environment. The lites are then cut to final digitizer dimensions using conventional glass cutting, techniques. A flexible electric connector is electrically connected to the complete assembly for attachment to the information device. This device may be optically bonded to the first surface of a liquid crystal display. The resulting product is the complete transparent digitizer interactive device.

[0027] While several forms of the invention have been shown and described, other forms will now be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, it will be understood that the embodiments shown in the drawings and described above are merely for illustrative purposes, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention, which is defined by the claims which follow.