TRANSPARENT HEATERS - 2

Transparent heaters are essential to use for challenging environments for cameras, LCDs &
electro-optical devices below -10C. The application in Avionics, cameras, LCDs & locomotives
require heaters so they can operate in cold and severe climates. Applying a heater is the
simplest solution. The transparent heater is usually made by only I.T.O. or I.M.I.T.O. with
higher transmittance. The resistance of the heater determines the rate of heat required and
power utilization. The lower the resistance, it requires higher power and higher rates of heating.
TFD, Inc. has pioneered the use of I.T.O. and I.M.I.T.O. with BBAR coatings for efficient and
high performance heaters for avionics, locomotives, flat panel displays, ships and cameras.
The heating uniformity and burned out is controlled by very low resistive bus bar material with
low contact resistance.
The heaters can be designed for wide resistance from 300 5 ohms and voltages (115, 28, 24,
12 volt). The heater with I.T.O. or I.M.I.T.O. has been tested up to 10 watts per square inch.
Usually a much lower heat is used for LCD display applications. The bonded heaters require
less power than stand alone, typically 1/3. The I.T.O. & I.M.I.T.O. coatings are extremely
reliable and stable for continuous operations. The typical visible transparency for I.T.O. is

80% avg., and IMITO is
92% average.
The patterned heaters are commonly used for uniquely higher or lower powers,
10 watts/sq.
inch. TFD can design patterned for various shapes, & sizes while maintaining uniform heating.
The patterned heaters are also very desirable for Infra-Red (IR) applications for wave lengths of
1.0 m 12 m.

Basic Heater Form

Patterned Heater Allows Higher Resistance or Voltage

CONNECTION: Bus bar to heating surface.

The contact resistance from the bus bar to the heating surface, I.T.O., I.M.I.T.O. , or NiCr
must have
0.1 ohm. The other rule of thumb is to have individual bus bar resistance to be

5% of the total resistance of the heater. The bus bar materials are:
A. Silver Epoxy

B. Soldered Metallization

C. Silver Frit Material

The Silver Epoxy is inexpensive and decays in 2 3 years. The Silver Frit Material has to be
fired at  350C that deforms glass flatness and this process contaminates the surface. The
Metalized Bus bar, such as Cr/Ni/Au, is a solid state process and works extremely well with
Soldered bus bar heaters. This is a highly recommended process. (See Heaters 1 Page).

POWER CALCULATION:
Below a Temperature Rise curve is provided that gives the relationship of time versus power of
the heater with thickness 0.040. There are different ways to apply heater glass with displays:
A. Stand alone. B. Laminated. The standalone are typically applied in the back of the displays
and have air gaps, 0.008 0.020, which makes it a poor heating system. For low heat
requirements its plenty. For fast rise temperature the heater glass should be bonded for
optimum avionics applications.
Mounting heater glass on the front (viewing side) of the display is not recommended as heat
loss to air could be as high as 50% of the total heat.
A thermistor or I.T.O. / Thermal coefficient of resistance (TCR) is commonly used to control
temperature.
If higher temperatures are used to quickly heat the display, you must reduce that heat
level once at operating temperature. Additionally, it is not recommended to operate
heaters above a 20 C ambient temperature.

TIME (min.)

(0.040 glass heater curve)

SIDE NOTE: besides adding a thermistor to monitor the temperature, I.T.O. itself has
a sizable TCR and can be its own temperature sensor.
Example:
For example, for dew removal we might use only
W/sq. inch in a 2 x 4 inch heater pattern on
glass. With the 8 square inches, a total of 2 watts is required since the chart values are
Watts/sq. in. (8 x
= 2). This information and the intended heater voltage allow calculation of
the heater resistance. The formula follows:

Heater Resistance (R) =

E2
P

(Voltage, in Volts)
(Power, in Watts)

9
/

9
/

Example 1: Bus Bars on ends

To complete the Example, well use 6 Volts to power the heater. So, R becomes 18 ohms (6, squared, divided by 2).

Now the heater resistance and part sizes are all thats required to define a heater to TFD; but
there, heater resistance is converted into resistivity for production purposes. Resistivity is the
surface resistance nature the manufacturer coats so the part shows the correct resistance. To
determine the resistivity value, its calculated with the length (L) and width (W).

(Note: Length is always the distance between bus bars, even if smaller than the width.)

Resistivity (  ) = L x R
W
L = Length (either inch or cm)
R = Heater Resistance (ohms)

W= Width (either inch or cm)

 = Resistivity (ohms/sq.)
3

Process: Sputtering
Heater Coating Materials:
The most commonly used transparent resistive coatings are I.T.O. (Indium Tin Oxide), and tin
oxide. TFD concentrates on producing superb quality I.T.O. and IMITO, in a variety of forms.
Opaque conductor films are Aluminum, Nichrome, Inconel, Tantalum, Nitride and cermet films.
Substrate materials can be glass, quartz, ceramic, plastic, kapton, polyester and others.

Resistivity Table:
Resistivity
I.T.O.
Sn02
NiCr
TaN
Inconel
Si0iCr

-4

1.5 x 10
3.5 x 10 -4
3.5 x 10 -4
4.5 x 10 -4
4.5 x 10 -4
7.2 x 10 -4

Thickness

TCR/PPM

1500
1500
1500
1500
1500
1500

1500 250
1500 100
300 50
150 50
225 50
150 50

General Nature
Transparent
Transparent
Opaque
Opaque
Opaque
Opaque

Bus bar Coatings:

Bus Bar Materials as Follows:

Power Recommendation

Application

1. Silver Epoxy

1.5 watt/sq inch

Commercial Heaters

2. Silver Epoxy with Copper Strip

2.0 watt/sq inch

Commercial/Industrial

3. Sputtered Cr/Ni/Au

1 10 watt/sq inch

Avionics, Ruggedized

4. Silver Frit

2.5 5 watt/sq inch

commercial/Industrial