• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 2024

The heating element utilizing the Joule heating generated when current flows through a conductor is widely researched and developed for various industrial applications such as moisture removal in automotive windshield, high-speed train windows, and solar panels. Recently, research utilizing heating elements with various nanostructures has been actively conducted to develop flexible heating elements capable of maintaining stable heating even under mechanical deformation conditions. In this study, flexible polyurethane possessing excellent flexibility was selected as the substrate, and silver (Ag) thin films with low electrical resistivity (1.6 μΩ-cm) were fabricated as the heating layer using magnetron sputtering. The 2D heating structure of the Ag thin films demonstrated excellent heating reproducibility, reaching 95% of the target temperature within 20 seconds. Furthermore, excellent heating characteristics were maintained even under mechanically deforming environments, exhibiting outstanding flexibility with less than a 3% increase in electrical resistance observed in repetitive bending tests (10,000 cycles, based on a curvature radius of 5 mm). This demonstrates that polyurethane/Ag planar heating structure bears promising potential as a flexible/wearable heating element for curved-shaped appliances and objects subjected to diverse stresses such as human body parts.