Highly stable, ultra-thin Au embedded zinc tin oxide multilayer transparent conductive thin films

Transparent conducting thin films (TCFs) with excellent stability and good mechanical properties, room temperature processing, as well as owing high transparency and conductivity, have become an essential requirement in numerous applications. Here, we report the fabrication of room temperature processed Au-embedded zinc tin oxide (ZTO) multilayer transparent conducting thin films on glass and polycarbonate substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. A detailed investigation on the correlation of optical and electrical properties of the ZTO/Au/ZTO (ZGZ) multilayer thin films, with the thickness of individual layers was carried out. The ZGZ thin films showed excellent performance under various stability tests. To evaluate the commercial application capabilities in aircraft canopies and other optoelectronic devices, the fabricated ZGZ multilayer TCFs was subjected to electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding studies. The ZGZ thin film exhibited EMI shielding effectiveness of 24.75 dB in the X-band region, yielding 99.66% power attenuation.