Conductive Ga doped ZnO/Cu/Ga doped ZnO thin films prepared by magnetron sputtering at room temperature for flexible electronics

Abstract Ga doped ZnO(GZO)/Cu/GZO multilayers were deposited by magnetron sputtering on polycarbonate substrates at room temperature. We investigated the structural, electrical, and optical properties of multilayers at various thicknesses of Cu and GZO layers. The lowest resistivity value of 3.3 × 10− 5 Ω cm with a carrier concentration of 2.9 × 1022 cm− 3 was obtained at the optimum Cu (10 nm) and GZO (10 nm) layer thickness. The highest value of figure of merit φTC is 2.68 × 10− 3 Ω− 1 for the GZO (10 nm)/Cu(10 nm)/GZO(10 nm) multilayer. The highest average near infrared reflectivity in the wavelength range 1000–2500 nm is as high as 70% for the GZO(10 nm)/Cu(10 nm)/GZO(10 nm) multilayer.