Characterisation and processing of fluoropolymers for electrowetting displays

This thesis is about electrowetting (EW) display technology and it is developed at Samsung LCD Netherlands R&D Center. The study is about characterisation and processing of different fluoropolymer (FP) materials. The EW displays production process involves three important steps for the FP layers treatment: the FP deposition, the FP surface activation prior to photo lithography and the final FP hydrophobicity recovery before backend processing. Fluoropolymer surface activation is critical to facilitate the hydrophilic photoresist coating, but the main requirement of this process is its reversibility. In fact, by means of an annealing process the fluoropolymer hydrophobic properties typical of a virgin layer are recovered. Goal of this study is to describe electrowetting displays manufacturing process focusing on the specific role of fluoropolymer materials, studying effect of chemical and physical properties like molecular weight, fluorination level and glass transition temperature, on display switching performance.