Drying of Clevios™ coatings

Clevios™ coatings need a thorough thermal drying. After the drying step the Clevios™ coating is fully functional, there is no need for further annealing steps. Short term heating to 200 °C (for max. 10 min) is possible.
Drying can be done in a normal lab hot-air convection oven, standard conditions for example are stabilized PET-film 15 min at 130 °C. This is a lab standard setting -depending on coating thickness the drying time can be much shorter. Drying starts being effective at about 80 °C but then a longer drying time is needed.
After spin-coating, the Clevios™ P layer is dried for 5 minutes at 100 °C to 200 °C on a hot-plate with a Petri dish covering the substrate during drying in order to allow some air exchange while keeping the temperature at a constant level.
As Clevios™PEDOT:PSS films are hygroscopic, it is often beneficial to handle the coated ITO anodes in a moisture-free atmosphere until subsequent layers are deposited.