ITO/ATO bilayer transparent electrodes with enhanced light scattering, thermal stability and electrical conductance.

Transparent electrodes based on In 2 O 3 :Sn (ITO) and SnO 2 :Sb (ATO) thin films have been deposited by sputtering at room temperature on soda lime glass (SLG) substrates. The preparation conditions were adjusted to obtain 250 nm-thick ITO layers with high conductivity and textured ATO coatings with various thicknesses from 80 to 200 nm. These ITO and ATO films have been combined to enhance the optical scattering and the electrical conductivity of the bilayer electrodes. Besides, a suitable ATO coating can prevent the oxidation of the ITO underlayer, thus increasing the stability of the overall electrical performance. With this purpose the structure, morphology, optical and electrical properties have been analysed comparatively for SLG/ITO, SLG/ATO and SLG/ITO/ATO samples after heating in air at 500 °C, studying the influence of the ATO layer thickness on the light scattering and thermal stability of the electrodes. In this way, a minimum sheet resistance of 8 Ω/sq has been achieved with a 120 nm-thick ATO film deposited on the 250 nm-thick ITO layer; such stacked electrode has visible transmittance near 80% and average haze H T = 10%, showing superior stability, light scattering and electrical performance than the isolated ITO and ATO films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]