ITO Glass Coating: Types of ITO Conductive Glass

The divergent demands of varying industries’ applications make it necessary for different ITO glass coating substrates to be used in their production. ITO coated glass suppliers Diamond Coatings supply different types of ITO conductive glass suitable for numerous industries’ applications.

ITO Coated Glass Suppliers

Offering a full ITO coated glass range, Diamond Coatings not only coat these different substrates but can supply them profiled to meet customers’ precise requirements, fully dimensioned and/or with:

• Cut outs/holes
• Radius
• Chamfers
• Enhancements including printed graphics/borders
• Anti-glare, anti-reflective & other special optical coatings

Able to provide thermally and/or chemically toughened glass, we can also polish substrates to meet specific flatness and optical requirements.

Types of ITO Conductive Glass

Substrates we currently offer for coating with our premium-quality Diamox ITO, Diamox+ Index Matched ITO & Diamond AR (Anti-Reflective) coatings include:

Borosilicate: This low-soda type of glass primarily consists of silica, boric oxide and potassium oxide; sodium oxide and calcium oxide. While producing this glass is considerably more difficult than producing ‘traditional glass’, its superior durability makes said production highly economical.

A so-called “Crown Glass” in optical terms, this glass type offers:

• Heat & chemical properties of exceptional use in chemical laboratory, military and a diversity of other applications
• Comparatively low refractive indices between 1.51 and 1.54 across visible wavelengths
• Low Dispersion

Also boasting a very low thermal expansion coefficient (~3×10-6/°C at 20 °C), Borosilicate glass is an extremely popular choice for TFT flat screens and diverse critical display equipment applications.

Fused Quartz: This usually transparent type of glass primarily contains amorphous (i.e. non-crystalline) silica. It is manufactured by melting high-purity naturally occuring quartz in electric (“electrically fused quartz”) or gas/oxygen (“flame fused quartz”) fuelled furnaces at temperatures around 2,000° C (3632° F).

Fused Silica: This type of either translucent or opaque glass also predominantly consists of amorphous silica. Produced by melting high purity silica sand feedstock in electric furnaces, it is occasionally also described as “higher standard fused quartz”.

BK7: Widely used for high transmission display applications, uncoated BK7 has an optical performance of 93% (standard) – a performance that can be further enhanced via application of anti-reflective coatings.

Produced in blocks, BK7 is cut down to sizes as required and polished on both sides to achieve specific dimensions.

Soda Lime (or S.L. Float) Glass & Toughened Options: Our most commonly used and least expensive type of glass due to its low processing cost, soda lime glass is made by drawing the glass across vats of molten tin (learn more).

This process results in the glass’ upper side (facing the air during production) being flatter & smoother that its lower side (facing the tin during production).

Available as standard or in toughened (chemically and/or thermally) options, the resulting sheets of soda lime glass can then be cut to diverse sizes.

OLED Grade Glass: We also offer a range of smooth surfaced OLED Grade types of glass where surfaces are rendered suitable for application of ultra-thin subsequent layers via ion-modified magnetron sputtering onto substrates of polished glass.

Suitable for OLED type applications including audio-visual (AV) & flat panel displays, lighting, digital signage and more, this type of glass is currently available in three options:

• SL -P-12 – Soda Lime Glass (1.1mm thick) with a 135nm ITO coating. Sheet resistivity: 12 ohms/sq, Transmittance: 86% at 550 nm.
• SL-P-80 – Soda Lime Glass (1.1mm thick) with a 25nm ITO coating. Sheet resistivity: 80 ohms/sq. Transmittance: 86% at 550nm.
• BO-X-20 – Borosilicate glass (1.1mm thick) with 100nm ITO coating. Sheet resistivity: 20 ohms/sq. Transmittance: 84% at 550nm.

Depending on the selected type, we can supply full-sized sheets (max. 400 mm x 500 mm) or precision-diced pieces (minimum size: 10 mm – 10 mm).

Contact Us

To learn more and/or discuss the most suitable type of ITO glass to meet your application’s specific optical requirements, please contact our helpful technical team today.