The Mechanical Properties of Metal Oxide Coated Polyester Films

Presented by B.M. Henry, University of Oxford

This communication reports on a study of the microstructure, mechanical and gas barrier properties of PECVD metal oxide coatings on heat stabilised (HS) PET [poly(ethylene terephthalate)],, primer-coated HS PET, filled PET and PEN [poly(ethylene naphthalate)] substrates. The coatings are highly conformal and exhibit very few large scale defects. Internal stresses in the coatings are found to be compressive for all substrates. The substrate is found to influence some of the mechanical properties with the cohesive strength of the coating greatest for primer-coated HS PET and lowest on filled PET. Secondly, a primer layer also increases the adhesive strength between coating and substrate compared to plain
PET and PEN.