Complex sensing electrode structure applied to a touch panel

1. Field of the Invention

The instant disclosure relates to a complex sensing electrode structure, and more particularly to a complex sensing electrode structure applied to a touch panel.

2. Description of Related Art

With information appliance developing, the touch panels have replaced keyboard and mouse to communicate with the information appliance. The touch panels provide users a friendly interface such that operations of computers or electronic products become simple, straightforward, lively and interesting. Depending on fields of applications, touch panels are applied to portable communication and information products (for example, personal digital assistant (PDA)), financial/commercial system, medical registration system, monitoring system, information guiding system, and computer-aided teaching system, and thereby enhancing convenience of handling for users.

Generally speaking, touch panels may be operated by means of infrared, ultrasonic, piezoelectric, capacitive or resistive sensing. The capacitive touch panel has inner wires made of transparent conductive materials (such as ITO material) as an sensing electrode on a glass substrate, and transmitting signals to integrated circuits (IC) configured on an outer flexible PCB or rigid PCB via peripheral conductive wires on the glass substrate. Such structure constitutes a touch sensor, which configured to an outer printed circuit board and a top protecting cover to complete a touch panel. A uniform electric field is generated on surface of the glass substrate when touching. Coordinates of the contact point are determined by variation of capacitance due to electrostatic reaction generated between the user's finger and the electric field when a user touches the touch panel.

However, the sensing electrode of the traditional touch panel is usually pattered by expensive photolithography manufacturing process, and the conductibility of the ITO material is not as good as that of metal material, thus the traditional touch panel has some defect such as high manufacturing cost and low conductibility, especially it is not suitable for developing large touch panel.

One aspect of the instant disclosure relates to a complex sensing electrode structure applied to a touch panel for effectively decreasing the manufacturing cost and the conductibility.

One of the embodiments of the instant disclosure provides a complex sensing electrode structure applied to a touch panel having a transparent substrate, wherein the complex sensing electrode structure comprises: a first conductive unit and a second conductive unit. The first conductive unit includes a plurality of first stripped conductive layers disposed on the transparent substrate and separated from each other by a predetermined distance. The second conductive unit includes a plurality of second stripped conductive layers disposed on the transparent substrate to respectively cover the first stripped conductive layers, wherein a conductive material used by the first stripped conductive layer and a conductive material used by the second stripped conductive layer are different.

More precisely, the conductive material used by the first stripped conductive layer is a conductive polymer material, and the conductive material used by the second stripped conductive layer is a metal material.

More precisely, the conductive polymer material is one of polyaniline, polyphenylene sulfide, polypyrrole, poly(p-phenylene), polythiophene, poly(p-phenylene vinylene), polyfluorene and polyacetylene.

More precisely, the metal material is one of Cu, Pt, Al, Au and Ag.

More precisely, the conductive material used by the first stripped conductive layer is one of Pd and Sn, and the conductive material used by the second stripped conductive layer is one of Cu, Pt, Al, Au and Ag.

More precisely, each first stripped conductive layer is formed on the transparent substrate by impressing, and each first stripped conductive layer is enclosed by each corresponding second stripped conductive layer by electroless plating.

Therefore, the complex sensing electrode structure can be manufactured by low temperature electroless plating without using the traditional photolithography manufacturing process, thus the instant disclosure can effectively reduce the manpower and the material cost. Furthermore, the complex sensing electrode structure can be composed of the first stripped conductive layers and the second stripped conductive layers that are respectively made of two different conductive materials, thus the conductibility of the complex sensing electrode structure is better than that of the traditional ITO sensing electrode. In conclusion, the manufacturing cost and the conductibility of the complex sensing electrode structure of the instant disclose can be decreased effectively.

To further understand the techniques, means and effects of the instant disclosure applied for achieving the prescribed objectives, the following detailed descriptions and appended drawings are hereby referred, such that, through which, the purposes, features and aspects of the instant disclosure can be thoroughly and concretely appreciated. However, the appended drawings are provided solely for reference and illustration, without any intention to limit the instant disclosure.

FIG. 1 shows a perspective, assembled, schematic view of the touch panel using the complex sensing electrode structure according to the first embodiment of the instant disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows a partial, cross-sectional view taken along the section line A-A of FIG. 1 without using the transparent cover;

FIG. 3 shows a partial, cross-sectional view taken along the section line B-B of FIG. 1 without using the transparent cover; and

FIG. 4 shows a perspective, exploded, schematic view of the touch panel using the complex sensing electrode structure according to the second embodiment of the instant disclosure.

First Embodiment

FIG. 1 shows a perspective, assembled, schematic view of the touch panel using the complex sensing electrode structure according to the first embodiment of the instant disclosure, where some components of the touch panel are omitted for emphasizing the improvement feature of the complex sensing electrode structure. FIG. 2 shows a partial, cross-sectional view taken along the section line A-A of FIG. 1 without using the transparent cover, and FIG. 3 shows a partial, cross-sectional view taken along the section line B-B of FIG. 1 without using the transparent cover. Referring to FIG. 1 to FIG. 3 , the first embodiment of the instant disclosure provides a touch panel Z comprising a complex sensing electrode structure 1 , a transparent substrate 2 , a transparent cover 3 , and the complex sensing electrode structure 1 comprises a first conductive unit 11 and a second conductive unit 12 .

Moreover, the first conductive unit 11 includes a plurality of first stripped conductive layers 110 disposed on the transparent substrate 2 and separated from each other by a predetermined distance. The second conductive unit 12 includes a plurality of second stripped conductive layers 120 disposed on the transparent substrate 2 to respectively cover the first stripped conductive layers 110 , where the conductive material used by the first stripped conductive layer 110 and the conductive material used by the second stripped conductive layer 120 are different. In other words, the first stripped conductive layer 110 and the second stripped conductive layer 120 can be made of two different materials, respectively. For example, with regard to one of the perfect designs for the complex sensing electrode structure 1 , the conductive material used by the first stripped conductive layer 110 may be a conductive polymer material, and the conductive material used by the second stripped conductive layer 120 may be a metal material. With regard to another one of the perfect designs for the complex sensing electrode structure 1 , the conductive material used by the first stripped conductive layer 110 may be one of Pd and Sn.

More precisely, referring to FIG. 1 , the complex sensing electrode structure 1 includes a plurality of X-axis sensing tracks (X) and a plurality of Y-axis sensing tracks (Y), where each X-axis sensing track (X) and each Y-axis sensing track (Y) can be respectively disposed on the top surface 201 and the bottom surface 202 of the transparent substrate 2 , and each X-axis sensing track (X) and each Y-axis sensing track (Y) can be respectively extended along a x-axis and a y-axis. In addition, the transparent cover 3 of the touch panel Z is disposed on the transparent substrate 2 to cover the X-axis sensing tracks (X), where the transparent cover 3 may be a glass substrate or a plastic substrate having a hard coating formed thereon by coating, and the transparent cover 3 has a touch surface 30 (or a contact surface) thereon to allow a user to touch it, such as the user can use his/her finger F to touch the touch surface 30 . Hence, when the user uses his/her finger F to touch the touch surface 30 such as sliding or clicking, the X-axis sensing tracks (X) and the Y-axis sensing tracks (Y) can be inducted concurrently to execute corresponding signal transmission or signal control.

With regard to the conductive materials used by the transparent substrate 2 , the first stripped conductive layer 110 and the second stripped conductive layer 120 , for example, the transparent substrate 2 may be one of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), poly carbonate (PC), polyethylene (PE), poly vinyl chloride (PVC), poly propylene (PP), poly styrene (PS) and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) according to different requirements. In addition, the conductive polymer material may be one of polyaniline (PANI), polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polypyrrole (PPY), poly(p-phenylene) (PPP), polythiophene (PT), poly(p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV), polyfluorene (PF) and polyacetylene (PA) according to different requirements. Moreover, the metal material may be one of Cu, Pt, Al, Au and Ag according to different requirements. However, the above-mentioned design for the transparent substrate 2 , the first stripped conductive layer 110 and the second stripped conductive layer 120 of the first embodiment is merely an example and is not meant to limit the instant disclosure.

Furthermore, the first embodiment of the instant disclosure also can provide a method of manufacturing a complex sensing electrode structure 1 that can applied to a touch panel Z, comprising the steps of: forming a plurality of first stripped conductive layers 110 on the transparent substrate 2 by impressing, and then forming a plurality of second stripped conductive layers 120 to respectively cover or enclose the first stripped conductive layers 110 by electroless plating, where the electroless plating method is a low temperature process. However, the above-mentioned steps for forming the first stripped conductive layer 110 and the second stripped conductive layer 120 of the first embodiment is merely an example and is not meant to limit the instant disclosure. Hence, the complex sensing electrode structure 1 of the instant disclosure can be manufactured without using photolithography manufacturing process, thus the manufacturing cost of the complex sensing electrode structure 1 can be reduced.

Second Embodiment

FIG. 4 shows a perspective, exploded, schematic view of the touch panel using the complex sensing electrode structure according to the second embodiment of the instant disclosure. The second embodiment of the instant disclosure provides another touch panel Z, and the difference between the second embodiment and the first embodiment is as follows: the second embodiment provides a top transparent substrate 2 A and a bottom transparent substrate 2 B to replace the transparent substrate 2 of the first embodiment, where the X-axis sensing tracks (X) can be disposed on the top surface 201 A of the top transparent substrate 2 A in advance, the Y-axis sensing tracks (Y) can be disposed on the top surface 201 B of the bottom substrate 2 B in advance, and the top transparent substrate 2 A and the bottom transparent substrate 2 B can be tightly connected with each other through optical glue (not shown).

It's worth mentioning that the design positions of the X-axis sensing tracks (X) and the Y-axis sensing tracks (Y) of the complex sensing electrode structure 1 also can be changed. For example, the X-axis sensing tracks (X) can be disposed on the bottom surface 202 A of the top transparent substrate 2 A and the Y-axis sensing tracks (Y) can be disposed on the bottom surface 202 B of the bottom substrate 2 B in advance. In other words, the X-axis sensing tracks (X) can be selectively disposed on the top surface 201 A or the bottom surface 202 A of the top transparent substrate 2 A in advance, and the Y-axis sensing tracks (Y) can be selectively disposed on the top surface 201 B or the bottom surface 202 B of the bottom substrate 2 B in advance

Therefore, the complex sensing electrode structure can be manufactured by low temperature electroless plating without using the traditional photolithography manufacturing process, thus the instant disclosure can effectively reduce the manpower and the material cost. Furthermore, the complex sensing electrode structure can be composed of the first stripped conductive layers and the second stripped conductive layers that are respectively made of two different conductive materials, thus the conductibility of the complex sensing electrode structure is better than that of the traditional ITO sensing electrode. In conclusion, the manufacturing cost and the conductibility of the complex sensing electrode structure of the instant disclose can be decreased effectively.

The above-mentioned descriptions merely represent the preferred embodiments of the instant disclosure, without any intention or ability to limit the scope of the instant disclosure which is fully described only within the following claims. Various equivalent changes, alterations or modifications based on the claims of instant disclosure are all, consequently, viewed as being embraced by the scope of the instant disclosure.