Low-Temperature Fabrication of High-Performance and Stable GZO/Ag/GZO Multilayer Structures for Transparent Electrode Applications

Presently, research and development of indium-free stable highly transparent conductive (TC) materials is of paramount importance for the blooming world of information display systems and solar energy conversion. Development of devices based on flexible organic substrates further narrows the choice of possible TC materials due to the need for lower deposition and process temperatures. In our work, the structural, electrical, and optical performances of Ga-doped ZnO/Ag/Ga-doped ZnO (GZO/Ag/GZO) multilayered structures deposited on glass substrates by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering in a pure Ar medium without any purposeful substrate heating have been investigated. The highest figure of merit achieved was 5.15 × 10−2 Ω−1 for the symmetric GZO/Ag/GZO multilayer, featuring GZO and Ag thicknesses of 40 and 10 nm, respectively, while the average optical transmittance was over 81% in the visible range of wavelengths and the resistivity was 2.2 × 10−5 Ω·cm. Additionally, the good durability of the performances of the multilayer structures was demonstrated by their testing in the context of long-term storage (over 500 days) in standard environmental conditions.