Effect of mesh patterning with UV pulsed-laser on optical and electrical properties of ZnO/Ag-Ti thin films

In this study, the ZnO/Ag-Ti structure for transparence conducting oxide (TCO) is investigated by optimizing the thickness of the Ag-Ti alloy and ZnO layers. The Ag-Ti thin film is deposited by DC magnetron sputtering and its thicknesses is well controlled. The ZnO thin film is prepared by sol-gel method using zinc acetate as cation source, 2-methoxiethanol as solvent and monoethanolamine as solution stabilizer. The ZnO film deposition is performed by spin-coating technique and dried at 150 °C on Corning 1737 glass. Due to the conductivity of ZnO/Ag-Ti is dominated by Ag-Ti, the sheet resistance of ZnO/Ag-Ti decrease dramatically as the thickness of Ag-Ti layer increases. However, the transmittances of ZnO/Ag-Ti become unacceptable for TCO application after the thickness of Ag-Ti layer beyond 6 nm. The as-deposited ZnO/Ag-Ti structure has the optical transmittance of 83% @ 500 nm and the low resistivity of 1.2 × 10⁻⁵ Ω-cm. Furthermore, for improving the optical and electrical properties of ZnO/Ag-Ti, the thermal treatment using laser is adopted. Experimental results indicate that the transmittance of ZnO/Ag-Ti is improved from 83% to 89% @ 500 nm with resistivity of 1.02 × 10⁻⁵ Ω-cm after laser drilling. The optical spectrum, the resistance, and the morphology of the ZnO/Ag-Ti will be reported in the study.