Improvement of transparent conducting materials by metallic grids on transparent conductive oxides

• Conductivity improvement over two orders of magnitude at small transmittance loss
• Limited performance of single material transparent conductors surpassed
• The figure of merit was improved by more than a factor of 50

The trade-off between transparency and conductivity in transparent conductors used in optoelectronic devices is a major bottleneck towards higher device performances. Grid deposition on transparent conductive oxides was demonstrated using electrochemical deposition, which has the advantage of a high aspect ratio of 0.45 and the possibility to use very narrow lines. The sheet conductivity was increased more than two orders of magnitude at a transmittance loss of only a few percent. The figure of merit as defined by Haacke was improved with a factor of more than 50.