Conductive glass (indium tin oxide): behind the scenes of the touch screen

Nowadays, touch screens have been widely used in various electronic products. Not only to smart phones and tablet computers, but also can they be seen on positioning navigation systems, automatic teller machines and other instruments. Behind this widely used technology is indispensable to an important substance, which is indium tin oxide (ITO).

Why is indium tin oxide important for touch screens? This involves the working principle of the touch screen. There are many ways to implement a touch screen, but the more dominant resistive and capacitive methods work depending on the electrical signal changes caused by a finger or other object touching the screen. There is a very critical issue in the process of implementing this technology: glass and most plastics are insulators. To make the touch screen work properly, it is necessary to cover a layer of conductive material on their surface, which is to ensure good Conductivity must be sufficiently transparent.

Indium tin oxide is obtained by mixing two oxides of indium trioxide and tin dioxide in a certain ratio, and tin dioxide generally accounts for 10% of the total weight. The indium tin oxide that we generally see is a white, gray or yellow powder, but it can be applied to the surface of glass or plastic to obtain a transparent film. When the thickness of the film does not exceed a few hundred nanometers (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter), 80% or more of visible light can be transmitted, so it does not greatly affect the transparency of glass or plastic. . At the same time, this layer of indium tin oxide film has a strong electrical conductivity, and the resistivity can be as low as one ten thousandth of an ohm·meter. The perfect combination of light transmission and electrical conductivity makes indium tin oxide the best choice for producing touch screens.

Product recommendation： Indium

Changsha SANTECH provides High Purity Indium Metal, Indium Granule, Indium Foil Indium Sheet, Indium Wire, Indium Trioxide, Blue Indium Tin Oxide Powder (ITO powder), Please email us if you are interested in our products. Thank you!