WO2011102168A1

WO2011102168A1 - Transparent electrode film

Info

Publication number: WO2011102168A1
Application number: PCT/JP2011/050715
Authority: WO
Inventors: 了明面; 浩之星野
Original assignee: 日本写真印刷株式会社
Priority date: 2010-02-17
Filing date: 2011-01-18
Publication date: 2011-08-25
Also published as: JPWO2011102168A1; JP5105499B2; TW201205600A

Abstract

Disclosed is a transparent electrode film wherein imbalances in sensitivity of the transparent electrode overall do not arise. A transparent electrode film (1) comprises a plurality of linear electrodes (5) that are arranged in parallel upon the obverse face of a transparent film (2). A transparent electrode pattern (20) is formed on the end portion of one side (one part) of the linear electrodes (5) in order to connect to a guidance circuit (15), and a transparent electrode pattern (30), which is equivalent to the transparent electrode pattern (20), is formed on the end portion of the opposite side (the other part) of the linear electrodes (5).

Description

Transparent electrode film

The present invention is applied to capacitance sensors for PDAs, portable terminals such as handy terminals, OA devices such as copiers and facsimiles, smartphones, mobile phones, portable game devices, electronic dictionaries, car navigation systems, small PCs, and various home appliances. The present invention relates to a transparent electrode film used.

Conventionally, a transparent electrode film used for a capacitance sensor or the like has a pattern of a transparent electrode formed in the center portion, and a routing circuit that transmits an electrical signal obtained by the transparent electrode to an external circuit around the periphery, that is, a portion corresponding to a frame. Is formed. And the pattern of a transparent electrode has the shape where the strip | belt-shaped electrode provided with a series of rhombus-shaped electrodes connected along the common axis was arranged in parallel as shown in patent document 1 or patent document 2. There are many cases (refer to Patent Document 1, Claim 7 and Patent Document 2, FIG. 9). On the other hand, there is a strong demand for a capacitance sensor to be narrowed by reducing the size of an applied product and increasing the size of a transparent electrode portion, and an electric signal is taken out only on one side and a circuit is provided.

Special table 2003-511799 gazette JP 2009-70191 A

Therefore, in order to securely connect the strip electrode and the routing circuit, the present inventors have taken into account a positional shift and made the pattern such that the end of the transparent electrode is enlarged and extended to the circuit forming portion. However, as a result of doing so, the pattern of the transparent electrode becomes so large that the sensitivity of the entire transparent electrode becomes unbalanced.

Therefore, the present inventors solved the above-mentioned problems by the following invention. That is, the present invention is a transparent electrode film having a plurality of strip electrodes arranged in parallel on the surface of the transparent film, wherein a transparent electrode pattern for connecting to a routing circuit is formed at one end of the strip electrode. The transparent electrode film is provided with a transparent electrode pattern equivalent to the transparent electrode pattern on the opposite end of the strip electrode.

The present invention may also be a transparent electrode film in which a part of a transparent electrode pattern provided on one end of the belt-like electrode and a part of a routing circuit pattern are laminated. In the present invention, a transparent conductive film is entirely formed on a transparent film, an etching resist is formed on the transparent conductive film, and the transparent conductive film is removed by etching to remove the etching resist. It may be a method for producing a transparent electrode film in which a strip electrode is formed by peeling and removing the resist, and a circuit is formed by patterning at one end of the strip electrode.

Further, the present invention is a sandwiched frame electrostatic capacitance sensor in which the transparent electrode film and a second transparent electrode film having a strip-shaped electrode orthogonal to the strip-shaped electrode of the transparent electrode film are laminated.

The transparent electrode film of the present invention is a transparent electrode film having a plurality of strip electrodes arranged in parallel to the surface of the transparent film, and is a transparent electrode for connecting to a routing circuit at one end of the strip electrode A pattern is formed, and a transparent electrode pattern equivalent to the transparent electrode pattern is also provided at the opposite end of the strip electrode. Therefore, there is no great difference in the transparent electrode pattern between the side where the routing circuit is formed and the other side where the routing circuit is not formed, and the sensitivity does not change greatly. Therefore, there is an effect that the sensitivity of the entire transparent electrode is not unbalanced.

The transparent electrode film of the present invention is characterized in that a part of the transparent electrode pattern provided on one end of the strip electrode and a part of the pattern of the routing circuit are laminated. Therefore, there is an effect that the electrical connection between the belt-like electrode and the routing circuit pattern can be ensured even if the positional deviation slightly occurs.

In the method for producing a transparent electrode film of the present invention, a transparent conductive film is entirely formed on a transparent film, an etching resist is patterned on the transparent conductive film, and the transparent conductive film at a location where the etching resist is not formed is formed. And stripping and removing the etching resist to form a strip electrode, and a circuit is formed by patterning at one end of the strip electrode. Therefore, there is an effect that a transparent electrode film that can meet the demand for narrowing the frame can be easily manufactured with high productivity.

It is the schematic which showed the example of the electrode pattern of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the electrode pattern of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the electrode pattern of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the manufacturing method of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the manufacturing method of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the manufacturing method of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the manufacturing method of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic which showed the example of the manufacturing method of the transparent electrode film of this invention. It is the schematic sectional drawing which showed the example of the electrostatic capacitance sensor using the transparent electrode film of this invention.

Hereinafter, the transparent electrode film of the present invention will be described. The transparent electrode film 1 of the present invention is a transparent electrode film 1 having a plurality of strip electrodes 5 arranged in parallel to the surface of the transparent film 2, and is provided at one end (one end) of the strip electrode 5. A transparent electrode pattern 20 for connection with the routing circuit 15 is formed, and a transparent electrode pattern 30 equivalent to the transparent electrode pattern 20 is also provided at the opposite end (the other end) of the strip electrode 5. (See FIGS. 1a, 1b, and 1c).

The transparent film 2 may be made of any material as long as it is transparent, for example, engineering plastics such as polycarbonate (PC), polyamide, or polyether ketone, acrylic, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), or Polybutylene terephthalate film or the like can be used. The thickness of the transparent film 2 is not particularly limited, but is preferably in the range of 20 to 500 μm in consideration of thinning of the capacitance sensor and stable mass production.

The strip electrode 5 is composed of a transparent conductive film 11. As the material of the transparent conductive film 11, a metal oxide film such as tin oxide, indium oxide, antimony oxide, zinc oxide, cadmium oxide, indium tin oxide (ITO) or antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO), or Composite films mainly composed of these metal oxides, or metals such as gold, silver, copper, tin, nickel, aluminum, or palladium, transparent polymers containing conductive fillers, and conductive materials such as polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) There is a thin film of conductive polymer. As a method for forming the conductive film, for example, a vacuum deposition method, sputtering, ion plating, CVD method, roll coater method, or the like can be used.

The pattern of the strip electrode 5 may include a series of rhombus electrodes 10 connected along a straight common axis as in Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2, or a simple electrode having a minimum electrode width of 10 to 200 μm. It may be a linear pattern. However, as shown in FIG. 1, a transparent electrode pattern 20 for connection to the routing circuit 15 is formed at the end of the strip electrode 5, and the transparent electrode pattern 20 is also formed at the opposite end of the strip electrode 15. A transparent electrode pattern 30 equivalent to the above is provided. Here, “equivalent” does not have to be exactly the same, but means that the difference in electrode sensitivity between the transparent electrode pattern 20 and the transparent electrode pattern 30 does not become a problem.

That is, the transparent electrode pattern 20 at the end is formed by connecting the conventional rhombus electrode pattern 10 to a half triangle 21 of the rhombus electrode pattern 10 and a pattern of a rectangle 22 corresponding to the half area of the rhombus electrode pattern 10. The pattern is changed to a transparent electrode pattern 30 similar to the transparent electrode pattern 20 (see FIG. 1a). By doing so, the transparent electrode pattern 20 and the transparent electrode pattern 30 have the same sensitivity as that of the rhombic electrode pattern 10, and the transparent electrode pattern 20 is in a pattern that can be easily electrically connected to the routing circuit 15.

Note that the transparent electrode pattern 20 and the transparent electrode pattern 30 are not limited to the above-described pattern modes, but may have a pattern such as an arrow (see FIG. 1b) or a square with the conventional rhomboid electrode pattern 10. A pattern (see FIG. 1c) may be used. Further, the transparent electrode pattern 20 and the transparent electrode pattern 30 may have slightly different patterns as long as the difference in electrode sensitivity is not a problem. For example, the transparent electrode pattern 20 shown in FIG. 1 a and the transparent electrode pattern 30 shown in FIG. 1 b can be combined in one strip electrode 5. Alternatively, the transparent electrode 20 and the transparent electrode 30 may have the same area in one band-shaped electrode, and may have different planar shapes as long as the difference in electrode sensitivity does not cause a problem.

As a manufacturing method of the strip electrode 5, a transparent conductive film 11 is formed on the entire surface of the transparent film 2 (see FIG. 2a), an etching resist 12 is formed on the transparent conductive film 11 (see FIG. 2b), and the etching is performed. There is a method in which the transparent conductive film 11 where the resist 12 is not formed is removed by etching (see FIG. 2c), and the etching resist 12 is removed by peeling (see FIG. 2d). Then, a routing circuit 15 is formed at one end of the strip electrode 5 (see FIG. 2e).

Examples of the etching resist 12 include photo-curable or photo-decomposable photosensitive resist materials such as acrylic, polyvinyl cinnamate, synthetic rubber, and novolac, and various printing methods such as gravure and screen, and mask coating. It is formed by the method to do.

The patterning of the etching resist 12 may be formed using a general-purpose printing method such as gravure printing or screen printing, but in order to correspond to a minimum electrode width of 10 to 200 μm, a photomask is irradiated with light, The method of forming by the photo process of exposing the non-mask part of the etching resist 12 to a desired pattern, and developing is more preferable. In the case where the etching resist 12 is a photo-curing type, the development is performed by selectively removing uncured portions by using sodium carbonate or the like as a developer. In the case where the etching resist 12 is of a photolytic type, it is performed by selectively removing the decomposed portion by using sodium metasilicate as a developer.

Etching agents include, for example, alkaline etching solutions such as sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, ammonium persulfate, ammonium, ammonium chloride, or cupric chloride, ferric chloride, chromic acid / sulfuric acid mixed solution, hydrogen peroxide solution / sulfuric acid mixed solution. An acidic etching solution such as is used.

The material and the forming method of the routing circuit 15 include a method of forming a conductive paste such as silver paste or carbon paste by a general printing method such as screen printing or gravure printing, and a metal film such as copper is formed by electroless or electrolytic plating. And a method of pattern etching a metal film such as copper formed by a vacuum deposition method or a sputtering method.

A protective layer or the like may be provided to protect the exposed strip electrode 5. A transparent material is selected as the material of the protective layer. For example, a transparent plastic film may be bonded or a transparent polymer may be applied. Further, a transparent adhesive layer for mounting on a window panel or an LCD panel may also serve as the protective layer.

If the transparent electrode film 1 obtained by the above invention and the 2nd transparent electrode film 8 which has the strip | belt-shaped electrode 6 of the shape orthogonal to the strip | belt-shaped electrode 5 of the said transparent electrode film 1 are laminated | stacked, a sandwiched frame electrostatic capacitance sensor 100 Is obtained (see FIG. 3). The sandwiched frame capacitance sensor 100 is formed by laminating two transparent electrode films 1 so that the strip electrodes 5 are orthogonal to each other.

A transparent conductive film made of indium tin oxide (ITO) is formed on the entire surface of a 38 μm-thick polyethylene terephthalate film by a sputtering method, and a photocurable dry film resist is bonded onto the transparent conductive film. Then, ultraviolet light was transmitted through the non-mask portion of the photomask, and the portion corresponding to the strip electrode pattern of the dry film resist was exposed. Next, the exposed dry film resist was developed with sodium carbonate, and the dry film resist in the portion not exposed to light was removed to obtain an etching resist pattern.

The obtained etching resist pattern has a rhombus shape of a series of 6 mm diagonal lines connected along a common axis of a straight line having a minimum electrode width of 20 μm except for both end portions, and both end portions are half of the rhombus shape. It was a pattern in which a triangular pattern and a rectangular pattern of 6 mm × 1.5 m having the same area were connected.

Next, after the transparent conductive film where the etching resist pattern was not formed was etched with ferric chloride, the etching resist covering the patterned conductive film was removed with 3% sodium hydroxide. By this process, a transparent electrode film having a pattern in which a triangular pattern having a rhombus half at both ends and a 6 mm × 1.5 m rectangular pattern having the same area as that of the triangular electrode pattern was obtained.

A transparent electrode film was obtained in the same manner as in Example 1 except that the etching resist pattern at both ends was a rhombus-shaped half-triangle pattern and a pattern like an arrow with a 3 cm square on each side. .

A transparent electrode film was obtained in the same manner as in Example 1 except that the etching resist pattern on both ends was changed to a pattern in which a rhombus with a diagonal of 6 mm and a square with a side of 3 cm were connected.

For the transparent electrode films of Examples 1 to 3, the conductive ink made of silver paste was drawn on one end by screen printing to form a circuit pattern. And 2 sets of them were produced, and as a result of laminating | stacking so that each strip | belt-shaped electrode might orthogonally cross, a clamped frame electrostatic capacitance sensor was obtained. The obtained sandwiched frame capacitance sensor operated normally without any imbalance in the sensitivity of the entire transparent electrode.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Transparent electrode film 2 Transparent film 5 Band-shaped electrode 6 Band-shaped electrode orthogonal to the band-shaped electrode 5 8 Second transparent electrode film 10 Rhombus-shaped electrode 11 Transparent conductive film 12 Etching resist 15 Route circuit 20 Route circuit 15 The transparent electrode pattern 21 is a half triangular pattern of the conventional rhomboid electrode pattern 30. The rectangular pattern is equivalent to the half area of the conventional rhomboid electrode pattern 30. 30 The end opposite to the transparent electrode pattern 20. Transparent electrode pattern 100 Capacitance sensor with sandwiched frame

Claims

A transparent electrode film having a plurality of strip electrodes arranged in parallel to the surface of the transparent film, wherein a transparent electrode pattern for connecting to a circuit is formed at one end of the strip electrode, and the strip electrode The transparent electrode film in which the transparent electrode pattern equivalent to the said transparent electrode pattern was formed also in the edge part on the opposite side.
The transparent electrode film according to claim 1, wherein each of the transparent electrode patterns formed on both ends of the belt-like electrode has the same area and has a different planar shape.
The transparent electrode film according to claim 1, wherein a part of the transparent electrode pattern provided at one end of the belt-like electrode and a part of the pattern of the routing circuit are laminated.
A transparent conductive film is formed on the entire surface of the transparent film, an etching resist is patterned on the transparent conductive film, the transparent conductive film in the portion where the etching resist is not formed is removed by etching, and the etching resist is peeled and removed. The manufacturing method of the transparent electrode film in any one of Claim 1 to 3 which forms a strip | belt-shaped electrode by this and patterns a circuit around the edge part of the one side of the said strip | belt-shaped electrode.
A narrow frame capacitance sensor in which two of the transparent electrode films according to any one of claims 1 to 3 are laminated so that the strip electrodes are orthogonal to each other.