Bingel, A.A.BingelSteglich, M.M.SteglichNaujok, P.P.NaujokMüller, R.R.MüllerSchulz, U.U.SchulzKaiser, N.N.KaiserTünnermann, A.A.Tünnermann2022-03-052022-03-052016https://publica.fraunhofer.de/handle/publica/24593910.1016/j.tsf.2016.09.032Highly transparent and conductive Al-doped ZnO/Ag/Al-doped ZnO (AZO/Ag/AZO) multilayers were prepared by industrial inline DC magnetron sputtering on glass substrates at room temperature. With optimized film thicknesses of 37 nm/10 nm/37 nm, an optimized low sheet resistance of only 6 O/sq. and high transmittances of T550 = 87.4% at 550 nm and T400-800 = 79.9% in the spectral range between 400 nm and 800 nm were reached. Furthermore, an increase of the AZO/Ag/AZO-performance was achieved when a small amount of oxygen was added to the process gas during the AZO deposition which was found to be because of a beneficial adjustment of the AZO dispersion. In this way, owing to both a decreased extinction coefficient as well as a higher refractive index of the AZO film, the maximum transmittance of the AZO/Ag/AZO three-layer structure is further increased (T550 = 89.0%) and the bandwidth of the transmittance range is broadened (T400-800 = 83.3%). With the adaption of the AZO dispersion a very high Figure-of-Merit (Haacke) F400-800 = 26.2 mO− 1 and F550 = 52.9 mO− 1 was achieved by industrial inline DC magnetron sputtering process.en541journal article