Microscopically crumpled indium-tin-oxide thin films as compliant electrodes with tunable transmittance

• Main Authors: Ong, Hui-Yng, Shrestha, Milan, Lau, Gih-Keong
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83655; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/38997
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) thin films are perceived to be stiff and brittle. This letter reports that crumpled ITO thin films on adhesive poly-acrylate dielectric elastomer can make compliant electrodes, sustaining compression of up to 25% × 25% equi-biaxial strain and unfolding. Its optical transmittance reduces with crumpling, but restored with unfolding. A dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) using the 14.2% × 14.2% initially crumpled ITO thin-film electrodes is electrically activated to produce a 37% areal strain. Such electric unfolding turns the translucent DEA to be transparent, with transmittance increased from 39.14% to 52.08%. This transmittance tunability promises to make a low-cost smart privacy window.