• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.148-153
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• 2010

Transparent conducting films having a hybrid structure of GZO/Metal/GZO were prepared on glass substrates by sequential deposition using DC magnetron sputtering. Silver, copper, aluminum and zinc thin films were used as the intermediate metal layers in the hybrid structure. The electrical and optical properties of hybrid transparent conducting films were investigated with varying the thickness of metal layer or GZO layers. With increasing the metal thickness, hybrid films showed a noticeable improvement of the electrical conductivity, which is mainly dependent on the electrical property of the metal layer. GZO(40 nm)/Ag(10 nm)/GZO(40 nm) film exhibits a resistivity of $5.2{\times}10^{-5}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ with an optical transmittance of 82.8%. For the films with Zn interlayer, only marginal reduction in the resistivity was observed. Furthermore, unlike other metals, hybrid films with Zn interlayer showed a decrease in the resistivity with increasing the GZO thickness. The optimal thickness of GZO layer for anti-reflection effect at a given thickness of metal (10 nm) was found to be critically dependent on the refractive index of the metal. In addition, x-ray diffraction analysis showed that the insertion of Ag layer resulted in the improvement of crystallinity of GZO films, which is beneficial for the electrical and optical properties of hybrid-type transparent conducting films.