The objective in this project is to develop a method which will permit the production of adherent, abrasion-resistant coating of Indium-Two Oxide (ITO) on plastic substrates. It is proposed that the desired goal be attained by use of a gradient sublayer which gradually spans the gap in chemical and physical properties between Indium-Two Oxide (ITO) and the organic substrate. This gradient compositional sublayer will be deposited using radio frequency (RF) plasma polymerization and plasma sputtering techniques. The proposed work is predicted on the equipment availability and recent experiences with plasma polymerization studies in our laboratories as well as recent literature results demonstrating the surface metallization of plastic substrates using radio frequency (RF) plasma techniques. The gradient sublayers employed will be ones which change gradually from 100% organic character to a metal oxide (e.g., aluminum oxide A12O3) or non-metal oxide (e.g., silium dioxide SiO2) outer surface to which the Indium-Two Oxide (ITO) will be bonded. Preliminary studies in our laboratory using conventional sublayer coating techniques are sufficiently promising to demonstrate the overall feasibility of the proposed research. The development of a strongly adhesive, abrasion resistance coating of Indium-Two Oxide (ITO) on plastic will open the door to a variety of promising commercial possibilities. Most important of these would be the production of all-plastic liquid- crystal displays (LCDs) as well as new inexpensive plastics-based keyboards.
