Abstract: An improved touch screen provides enhanced electrical performance and optical quality. The electrodes on the touch screen are made of a mesh of conductors to reduce the overall electrode resistance thereby increasing the electrical performance without sacrificing optical quality. The mesh electrodes comprise a mesh pattern of conductive material with each conductor comprising the mesh having a very small width such that the conductors are essentially invisible to the user of the touch screen.

Abstract: An improved touch screen has enhanced optical performance and aesthetic quality. The electrodes on the touch screen employ additional fine traces of conductive material to reduce the overall electrode trace resistance to increase electrical performance without sacrificing optical quality. The additional fine traces of conductive material may be placed on the top of the ITO traces or in channels inside the boundaries of the ITO traces. The additional traces preferably run the length of the ITO traces to reduce the resistance in the longer dimension. Further, the additional traces are very small in width such that in the aggregate they cover only a small portion of the ITO electrode trace in lateral dimension to reduce the visibility of the additional traces. The conductive material may also be formed as a plurality of geometric shapes substantially forming a line in the longer dimension of the transparent conductive traces to reduce the visibility of the conductive material.

Abstract: An improved touch screen has enhanced optical performance and aesthetic quality. The sense electrodes and other traces on the touch screen are made less invisible to the user by substantially filling the space between the conductive traces or electrodes with isolated regions that match the light transmission characteristics of the electrodes. In capacitive and resistive touch screens, the space between ITO electrodes and other traces on the substrate is substantially filled with ITO to match the electrodes. The space between electrodes is preferably filled with isolated regions of ITO formed in a pattern. The isolated regions in the pattern may be shaped and the electrodes notched to create non-linear spaces to further reduce the visibility of the pattern. Further, the space between ITO traces can be filled with irregular-shaped ITO regions to further reduce the visibility of the space.

Abstract: A capacitive touch screen has fewer manufacturing steps to reduce the cost of manufacture. The touch screen has ITO conductor traces that are resistance matched to maintain the accuracy of the touch screen while reducing the cost of manufacture. In addition, offset pattern printing is used to apply an optically matched insulative coating over the conductive traces to eliminate the need for other process steps to connect the conductive traces for the capacitive sense lines.