Failure modes analysis of electrofluidic display under thermal ageing. Issue 11 (28th November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dong, Baoqin; Tang, Biao; Groenewold, Jan; Li, Hui; Zhou, Rui; Henzen, Alexander Victor; Zhou, Guofu
• Is Part Of: Royal Society open science. Volume 5:Issue 11(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-11-28
• Subjects: electrofluidic display -- ParyleneC/AF1600X -- thermal ageing -- failure mode; Science -- Periodicals; 500
• DOI: 10.1098/rsos.181121
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2054-5703

Abstract

Abstract : Dielectric failure as well as optical switching failure in electrofluidic display (EFD) are still a bottleneck for sufficient device lifetime. In this study, a dielectric redundancy-designed multilayer insulator of ParyleneC/AF1600X was applied in an EFD device. The reliability performance was systematically studied by tracking the applied voltage-dependent leakage current and capacitance changes (I–V and C–V curves) with thermal ageing time. The multilayer insulator shows a more stable performance in leakage current compared to a single-layer insulator. The failure modes during operation underlying the single-layer and the multilayer dielectric appear to be different as exemplified by microscopic images. The single-layer AFX shows significant detachment. In addition, by quantitatively analysing the C–V curves with ageing time, we find that for the single AFX device, the dominant failure mode is 'no-opening' of the pixels. For the multilayer device, the dominant failure mode is 'no-closing' of the pixels. This study provides tools for distinguishing the basic failure modes of an EFD device and demonstrates a quantitative method for evaluating the reliability performance of the device under thermal ageing.