The design of ZnS/Ag/ZnS transparent conductive multilayer films

Abstract In this paper, a ZnS/Ag/ZnS multilayer system for the transparent electrodes in flat panel displays was designed. The optical and electrical performance of an Ag and ZnS single layer films with nano-dimensions was investigated. The smallest thickness of the continuous single layer Ag film that could be deposited on SiO 2 surface by thermal evaporation is approximately 12 nm. The spectroscopic ellipsometry analysis indicated that the interlayer between the Ag and ZnS layer contains a physically mixed layer and a compound semiconductor layer. Based on these studies, according to the characteristic matrix theory, the design for the optimized system was carried out with complete searching strategy. A group of the optimized structures with good selective filtering performance were successfully prepared, including some new extremely asymmetric multilayer structures. These have low sheet resistance of 3 Ω/□ and a good spectral selectivity performance with luminous transmittance T lum approximately 90% and the reflectance near infrared region above 90%. The figure of merit F TC used for evaluating transparent electrodes reached 7.3×10 −2 at 550 nm wavelength.