Optimisation of optical and electrical properties of ZnO/Au-Pd/ZnO multilayer thin films

Abstract

For use as transparent conductive oxide, conductive multilayer thin films were created with three alternating layers of metal oxide/metal/ metal oxide. (TCO). Specifically in this work, ZnO/Au-Pd/ZnO multilayer coating system was deposited on glass substrate and characterized. ZnO films were prepared by successive deposition steps consisting of vacuum thermal evaporation of zinc oxide powder, followed by heat treatment at 450 °C. Plasma magnetron sputtering was used to deposit Au-Pd films. the same amount of Au and Pd was used. The thickness of the sputter deposited metallic interlayer (Au-Pd) was varied in order to optimize the optical and electrical properties of the stack. Morphology and microstructure were investigated by SEM and XRD. Four point probe was used to investigate electrical properties. and the transmittance values were measured using a spectrophotometer. Transmittance was measured for multilayer stacks containing Au-Pd interlayer.