Research Progress on Ultrathin Metal Transparent Conductive Films and Their Applications
XU Junjun1,2, HUANG Jinhua2, SHENG Wei2, WANG Zhaozhao1,2, ZHAO Wenkai1,2, LI Jia2, YANG Ye2, WAN Dongyun1, SONG Weijie2
1 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 2 Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201
Abstract: Transparent conductive thin films are widely used in optoelectronic devices such as displays, solar cells and light-emitting diodes. In recent years, with the innovation of information technology and new materials, flexible electronic devices have been rapidly developed in the fields of display, energy and wearable electronics, which poses new challenges to the flexibility of transparent conductive thin films. Compared with other types of flexible transparent conductive thin films, ultrathin metal transparent conductive thin films have the advantages of flexibility, high electrical conductivity, uniform photoelectric performance, good stability, low cost and large-scale preparation, and are expected to be ideal mate-rials for replacing ITO. The growth of ultrathin metal thin films is closely related to their photoelectric properties. Metals generally have higher surface energy than dielectric substrates and thus grow in Volmer-Weber mode, resulting in a high threshold thickness. For metal thin films with thickness below threshold thickness, in terms of electrical properties, the nanocluster morphology causes electrons to be excessively scattered at grain boundaries and surface and suppresses electron mobility, resulting in high resistivity. In terms of optical properties, discrete nanoclusters also induce localized surface plasmon resonance, which causes the transmittance curve of ultrathin metal films to decrease significantly at specific wavelength. Although further increasing the thickness of films can lower the resistivity, the transmittance will decrease accordingly. Therefore, the continuous morphology and low threshold thickness of metal films is the key to obtain good optical and electrical properties at the same time. The existing methods for reducing the threshold thickness of ultrathin metal thin films include the addition of oxide buffer layers and metal seed layers, surface treatments, doping and low-temperature deposition. The method of adding oxide buffer layers is the most commonly used for preparing ultrathin metal films due to the advantages of rich material selection and simple and controllable preparation process. The addition of metal seed layer and doping can effectively improve the wettability of metal thin films, while the introduction of other metals will arise the problem of optical loss, reducing the transmittance of metal films to some extent. The surface treatment method inhibits the diffusion of metal atoms with the covalent chemical bonds between the functional groups of the polymers and metals and has less influence on the optical properties of films. The low-temperature deposition is rarely used because of the requirements for precise temperature control and expensive equipments. In this review, we summarize the recent progress on ultrathin metal transparent conductive films. Firstly, the growth mode, electrical properties, and optical properties of ultrathin metal transparent conductive films are summarized. The methods and mechanism to reduce the threshold thickness of ultrathin metal films are introduced in details. The applications of ultrathin metal transparent conductive films in solar cells, OLEDs, long-range surface plasmon waveguides, and low-E coatings are presented. Finally, the research trends of development for ultrathin metal films are discussed.
许君君, 黄金华, 盛伟, 王肇肇, 赵文凯, 李佳, 杨晔, 万冬云, 宋伟杰. 超薄金属透明导电膜及其应用研究进展[J]. 材料导报, 2019, 33(11): 1875-1881.
XU Junjun, HUANG Jinhua, SHENG Wei, WANG Zhaozhao, ZHAO Wenkai, LI Jia, YANG Ye, WAN Dongyun, SONG Weijie2. Research Progress on Ultrathin Metal Transparent Conductive Films and Their Applications. Materials Reports, 2019, 33(11): 1875-1881.
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