Electrical and Optical Properties of AZO/Ag/AZO Multilayer Thin Films Prepared by DC Magnetron Sputtering

Silver nanoparticles were deposited on aluminium doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films and coated with AZO to fabricate AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer thin films by DC magnetron sputtering. The electrical and optical properties of the multilayer thin films were studies by using Hall measurement and UV- visible spectroscopy and compared with AZO thin films. It was found that the sheet resistance and transmittance decreases with increasing of silver layer sput- tering time. The figure of merit, which is used to determine a quality of thin films for transparent conducting oxide (TCO) applications, is found to be order of 10-4 Ω-1 for AZO/Ag(10 sec)/AZO compared to order of 10-7 Ω-1 for AZO. These multilayer thin films could be explored for TCO applications.