Effect of Gold Thickness and Annealing on Optical and Electrical Properties of TiO2/Au/TiO2 Multilayers as Transparent Composite Electrode on Flexible Substrate

摘要

Multilayer structures of TiO2/Au/TiO2 have been deposited onto flexible substrates by room temperature sputtering to develop indium-free transparent composite electrodes (TCEs). The effect of Au thicknesses on optical, electrical properties and the mechanism of conduction have been discussed. The electrical conductivity of the TCEs is solely contributed by the middle metal layer. The critical thickness (t (c)) of the Au mid-layer to form a continuous conducting layer is 10 nm, and the multilayer has been optimized to obtain a sheet resistance of 12.2 a"broken vertical bar/sq and an average optical transmittance of 86% at 590 nm. The Haacke figure of merit (FOM) for t (c) has one of the highest FOM with 18 x 10(-3) a"broken vertical bar(-1). The samples were annealed in various environments for 24 h up to 150A degrees C.