Touch Sensor Metal Nanowire Overlap for Narrow Bezel
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Solution Overview
Problem
Touch sensors face challenges in reducing the peripheral area size while maintaining acceptable contact impedance, which is crucial for narrow bezel designs in electronic devices, as reducing the contact area between touch electrodes and peripheral circuits increases contact impedance, affecting signal transmission.
Innovation Solution
A touch sensor design featuring a metal nanowire layer and a metal layer with a specific overlapping region, where the metal nanowire layer undergoes a surface treatment to reduce surface resistance, allowing for a contact area between 0.09 mm2 and 1.20 mm2 and a contact impedance less than 50Ω, enabling effective signal transmission while meeting narrow bezel size requirements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If the contact area between touch electrodes and peripheral circuits is reduced to meet narrow bezel design requirements, then the peripheral area size is reduced, but the contact impedance increases adversely affecting signal transmission
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies surface treatment to the metal nanowire layer to modify its surface properties, specifically reducing surface resistance. This parameter change allows the overlapping region to achieve low contact impedance (less than 50Ω) even with reduced contact area (0.09-1.20 mm²), thereby resolving the contradiction between minimizing peripheral area and maintaining reliable electrical contact
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a composite structure consisting of metal nanowires embedded in a matrix material. This composite configuration provides both mechanical stability and electrical conductivity, enabling effective signal transmission through the overlapping region while maintaining a compact peripheral area design
2Area of stationary object
If the contact area between touch electrodes and peripheral circuits is reduced, then the peripheral area size is reduced, but the signal transmission quality deteriorates due to increased contact impedance
Solution Approach 1:
By applying surface treatment to reduce the surface resistance of the metal nanowire layer, the patent maintains low contact impedance in the overlapping region. This ensures that signal transmission quality is preserved even when the contact area is reduced to enable narrow bezel design, preventing information loss during signal transmission
3Area of stationary object
If the overlapping region size is minimized to achieve narrow bezel design, then the peripheral area is reduced, but the contact impedance increases making peeling issues more likely
Solution Approach 1:
The surface treatment applied to the metal nanowire layer reduces its surface resistance, which compensates for the reduced overlapping region size. This parameter modification ensures that contact stability is maintained and peeling issues are prevented even when the overlapping region is minimized for narrow bezel design
Solution Approach 2:
The composite structure of metal nanowires in a matrix provides enhanced mechanical interlocking and electrical conductivity in the overlapping region. This composite material approach maintains contact stability and prevents peeling despite the minimized overlapping area required for narrow bezel design
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively reduces contact impedance and allows for a smaller peripheral area, meeting both narrow bezel design and contact impedance requirements, ensuring reliable signal transmission and preventing peeling issues, even under varying environmental conditions.
Implementation Method 1
the metal nanowire layer undergoes a surface treatment to reduce surface resistance
Data Source
AI summary
A touch sensor having a visible area and a peripheral area on at least one side of the visible area includes a substrate, a metal nanowire layer, and a metal layer. The metal nanowire layer is disposed on the substrate and has a first portion corresponding to the visible area and a second portion corresponding to the peripheral area. The metal layer is disposed on the substrate and corresponding to the peripheral area, in which a portion of the metal layer overlaps and contacts at least a portion of the second portion of the metal nanowire layer, such that an overlapping region is formed, a contact area of the overlapping region is between 0.09 mm2 and 1.20 mm2, and a contact impedance of the overlapping region is less than 50Ω.