Characterization of Al2O3 Thin Film Encasulation by Plasma Assisted Spatial ALD Process for Organic Light Emitting Diodes

Organic light emitting diode (OLED) is considered as the next generation flat panel displays due to its advantages of low power consumption, fast response time, broad viewing angle and flexibility. For the flexible application, it is essential to develop thin film encapsulation (TFE) to protect oxidation of organic materials from oxidative species such as oxygen and water vapor [1]. In many TFE research, the inorganic film by atomic layer deposition (ALD) process demonstrated a good barrier property. However, extremely low throughput of ALD process is considered as a major weakness for industrial application. Recently, there has been developed a high throughput ALD, called 'spatial ALD' [2]. In spatial ALD, the precursors and reactant gases are supplied continuously in same chamber, but they are separated physically using a purge gas streams to prevent mixing of the precursors and reactant gases. In this study, the $Al_2O_3$ thin film was deposited by spatial ALD process. We characterized various process variables in the spatial ALD such as temperature, scanning speed, and chemical compositions. Water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) was determined by calcium resistance test and less than $10-^3g/m^2{\cdot}day$ was achieved. The samples were analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM).