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Examine the optical properties of oxide/ultra-thin silver/oxide sandwich structures

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Abstract

This work calculated the transmittance spectra in the 300–1200 nm wavelength range of six different sandwich structures on glass, comprising typical transparent conductive oxides with an ultra-thin layer of silver at 6 and 7 nm in the middle. Further analyses returned contour maps of average optical transmittances in 300–1200 and 400–800 nm wavelength ranges along the thicknesses of the top and bottom oxides in the 0–100 nm range with a step size of 5 nm. The simulation also provides the optimum designs and their corresponding transmittance spectra for each sandwich structure. Among tested structure, Glass/TiO2/Ag/AZO exhibited the highest average transmittance of 90.8% in the 400–800 nm range, while Glass/TiO2/Ag/SnO2 demonstrated the highest average transmittance of 83.3% in the 300–1200 nm range. These structures, along with Glass/SnO2/Ag/SnO2, are found to have good optical performance and could replace ITO in solar-cell and display applications, theoretically.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by the National Science Foundation award #1917577.

Funding

This study was funded by National Science Foundation, 1917577, Thanh Tran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Thanh Tran & Qi Hua Fan

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Qi Hua Fan

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  1. Thanh Tran
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  2. Qi Hua Fan
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Correspondence to Thanh Tran.

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Tran, T., Fan, Q.H. Examine the optical properties of oxide/ultra-thin silver/oxide sandwich structures. MRS Advances 8, 1017–1021 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-023-00624-z

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