Indium tin oxide (ITO), although widely used as a transparent conductor in such devices as touch-screen displays, has several drawbacks. Researchers at Brown Univ. may have found a way to solve one of these issues - flexibility. Thin films of ITO are currently made by sputtering - a deposition method that is expensive. Until now, alternative methods have produced inferior films. The new process uses one of these alternative methods - spin casting - but with a different chemistry to achieve high-performance films of ITO. Spin casting forms thin films by dripping a solution of tiny crystals onto a substrate. In this case, the chemistry of the nanocrystals appears to be the key to performance.
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