Characterization of SnO2/Cu/SnO2 multilayers for high performance transparent conducting electrodes

• SnO2/Cu/SnO2 multilayer films were prepared at different Cu layer thicknesses.
• SnO2/Cu/SnO2 multilayer films were prepared at different substrate temperatures.
• The reasons for the change in electrical were discussed and explained possibly.
• The reasons for the change in optical properties were discussed.

In order to improve the transparency and durability of the Cu films, SnO2/Cu/SnO2 layered composite structures have been investigated. The SnO2/Cu/SnO2 multilayer films have much lower sheet resistance compared with a single-layered SnO2 film. In our work, SnO2/Cu/SnO2 multilayer films were deposited on quartz glass substrates by RF and DC magnetron sputtering. We investigated the structural, electrical and optical properties of multilayer films at various Cu thicknesses and substrate temperatures. The highest conductivity of multilayer films was obtained with a carrier concentration of 2.3 × 1022 cm− 3 and a resistivity of 6.5 × 10− 5 Ω·cm at the optimum copper layer thickness and substrate temperature. The peak transmittance, photopic averaged transmittance, and figure of merit are 80%, 72%, and 8.3 × 10− 3 Ω− 1, respectively.