Development of a highly transparent, low-resistance lithium-doped nickel oxide triple-layer film deposited by magnetron sputtering

This research presents a triple-layer transparent conductive oxide thin film, with a lithium-doped nickel oxide/silver/lithium-doped nickel oxide (L-NiO/Ag/L-NiO) structure using radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on glass substrates. The high transmittance L-NiO thin films were deposited using the sputtering method with Ar/H-2 as the reaction gases. The triple-layer structure, L-NiO/Ag/L-NiO, showed impressive electrical conductivity. The figure of merit (FOM) results indicated that the L-NiO/Ag/L-NiO triple-layer thin films with Ag deposition times of 2 min possessed satisfactory optical and electrical properties for potential applications.