The structural and electro-optical characteristics of AZO/Cr:Cu/AZO transparent conductive film

A novel triple-layered transparent conductive film, AZO/Cr:Cu/AZO (ACCA), was presented in the paper. The structural and electro-optical properties of the ACCA film were discussed. The thickness of the middle metal layer was constant and those of the AZO layers were varied. The ACCA film shows an obvious ZnO (002) c-axis preferential growth. No diffraction peaks related to Cr and Cu were observed through x-ray diffraction analysis. The middle Cr:Cu layer showed a thickness of 8.16 nm with a continuous and amorphous structure by the observation of a high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). For the electro-optical characteristic, a best figure of merit (FOM) value of 3.54 x 10(-3) Omega(-1) with a corresponding transmittance of 85% was obtained at the thickness of 116 nm of ACCA film. The high FOM value of the film is due to the improvement of conductivity and small sacrifices of transparency. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.