Oxide (SiO₂)/Metal(Ag)/Oxide(SiO₂, ITO, ZnO) multilayer films were fabricated using a magnetron sputtering technique at room temperature on Si (p-type, 100) and a glass substrate. The electrical and optical properties of the asymmetric multilayer films depended on the thickness of the mid-layer film and the type of oxide in the bottom layer. As the metal layer becomes thicker, the sheet resistance decreases. However, the transmittance decreases when the metal layer exceeds a threshold thickness of approximately 10~12 nm. In addition, the sheet resistance and transmittance change according to the type of oxide in the bottom layer. If the oxide has a large resistivity, the overall sheet resistance increases. In addition, the anti-reflection effect changes according to the refractive index of the oxide material. The optical and electrical properties of multilayer films were investigated using an ultraviolet visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer and a 4-point probe, respectively. The optimum structure is SiO₂ (30 nm)/Ag (10 nm)/ZnO (30 nm) multilayer, with the highest FOM value of 7.7×10^-3 Ω^-1.

Oxide (SnO₂)/metal alloy (Cu(Ni))/oxide (SnO₂) multilayer films were fabricated using the magnetron sputtering technique. The oxide and metal alloy were SnO2 and Ni-doped Cu, respectively. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of the multilayer films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectrophotometry, and 4-point probe measurements, respectively. The properties of the SnO₂/Cu(Ni)/SnO₂ multilayer films were dependent on the thickness and Ni doping of the mid-layer film. Since Ni atoms inhibit the diffusion and aggregation of Cu atoms, the grain growth of Cu is delayed upon Ni addition. For 250℃, the Haccke’s figure of merit (FOM) of the SnO₂ (30 nm)/Cu(Ni) (8 nm)/SnO₂ (30 nm) multilayer film was evaluated to be 0.17×10^-3 Ω^-1.

We fabricated highly flexible Mn-doped SnO2 (MTO)/Ag/MTO/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/MTO multilayer transparent conducting films. To reduce refractive-index mismatching of the MTO/Ag/MTO/polyethylene terephthalate (PET), index-matching layers were inserted between the oxide-metal-oxide-structured films and the PET substrate. The PDMS layer was deposited by spin-coating after adjusting the mixing ratio of PDMS and hexane. We investigated the effects of the index-matching layer on the color and reflectance differences with different PDMS dilution ratios. As the dilution ratio increased from 1:100 to 1:130, the color difference increased slightly, while the reflectance difference decreased from 0.62 to 0.32. The MTO/Ag/MTO/PDMS/MTO film showed a transmittance of 87.18~87.68% at 550 nm. The highest value of the Haacke figure of merit was 47.54×10^-3 Ω^-1 for the dilution ratio of 1:130.