The Fracture Distribution in ITO Coating with Compressive Bending Stress on Polymer Substrates

The Fracture Distribution in ITO Coating with Compressive Bending Stress on Polymer Substrates

In this paper, we investigated the fracture distribution in indium-tin-oxide (ITO) coating with compressive bending stress on polymer. Under compressive strain, the ITO island delaminates, buckles and cracks. As the mechanical compressive stress increases, the buckling width of ITO seems to be increased. These created cracks are related to well-defined distribution of mechanical stress in ITO island-arrays. We related. mechanical bending stress to crack distribution and derived theoretical equation of position-dependent bending stress. And, we verified the bending stress's magnitude to crack distribution observed from optical photographs.