Inorganic-solid-state Electrolyte Layer Deposited by Cathodic Arc Plasma for Rapidly Switching Electrochromic Device.

This work focuses on fabricating a solid electrolyte Ta₂O₅ thin film deposited by cathodic arc plasm (CAP) deposition through three different ratio of oxygen and argon. In our experiments, refractive index of Ta₂O₅ films are taken as 2.25, 1.96, 1.9 with various O₂/Ar= 1.5, O₂/Ar= 2, O₂/Ar= 2.4, respectively. Our results show that the refractive index mostly decreased as we increase the oxygen flow rate, in which the minimum is found at 240 sccm. It provides good conduction pathways for ions through smaller thin-film's refractive index that exhibits more porosity voids. This property enhances ion's mobility for electrochromic device causing rapid coloring/bleaching phenomenon. Ta₂O₅ thin film is suitable as a solid electrolyte layer in center of electrochromic device (ECD) using CAP deposition. As a result, rapid response times were observed in fabricated device with an area of 5 cm×5 cm, exhibiting transmittance optical modulation ΔT = 61.5% (@550 nm) with the bleaching time τ = 8 s and transmittance optical modulation ΔT = 50% (@550 nm) with the coloring time τ= 10 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]