In this study, we investigated the optical, electrical and exothermic characteristics of ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer structures prepared with various Ag thicknesses on quartz and PI substrates. The transparent conducting properties of the ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer films depended on the thickness of the mid-layer metal film. The ITO/Ag (14 nm)/ITO showed the highest Haccke’s figure of merit (FOM) of approximately 19.3×10-3 Ω-1. In addition, the exothermic property depended on the substrate. For an applied voltage of 3.7 V, the ITO/Ag (14 nm)/ITO multilayers on quartz and PI substrates were heated up to 110℃ and 200℃, respectively. The bending tests demonstrated a comparable flexibility of the ITO/Ag/IT multilayer to other transparent electrodes, indicating the potential of ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer as a flexible transparent conducting heater.
