Preparation of nano-polycrystalline WO3 thin films and their solid-state electrochromic display devices

In this paper, nano-polycrystalline WO3 thin films with the thickness in the range of 100-200 nm have been uniformly prepared on the designed regions of ITO (indium tin oxide) glass substrates by thermal evaporation deposition. Their crystal structures, surface morphologies and uniformities are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. The solid-state electrochromic display (ECD) devices based on these nano-polycrystalline WO3 thin films have been also fabricated and have demonstrated to have better performance than normal thin films, including shorter response time, higher contrast, and furthermore, higher stability to keep the colored state without power consumption. These results demonstrate nano-polycrystalline WO3 thin films can be applied to improve the performance of ECD devices, especially suitable to static display.