Characterization of thin ITO/Au/ITO sandwich films deposited on glass substrates using DC magnetron sputtering

The correlation between structural and optical properties of an Au, ITO, and ITO/Au/ITO (IUI), gold, indium tin oxide, and indium tin oxide/gold/indium tin oxide, respectively, sandwich structure thin film has been reported in this study. The deposition of all samples onto glass substrates was carried out using D.C. magnetron sputtering, without the use of substrate heating, and the intermediate layer was a metallic gold film with an 8 nm thickness. The substrate-target distance in the IUI structure was kept constant at 8 nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are often utilized techniques for the evaluation of the structural and surface morphology of films. The optical properties of the films were demonstrated by a spectrophotometer (UV/vis/NIR) and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) techniques adopted for the new amorphous model, and the findings were compared with those between 200 and 2200 nm, where the wavelengths overlap at room temperature, which is the purpose of the present work. The observed and estimated optical constant values of the Au, ITO, and IUI films using the best dispersion model were reported. In addition, the transmission and reflection spectrum results of the films were compared with those obtained by UV measurements. Excellent correlations for the optical constant properties of the multilayer films were observed employing two distinct approaches. These thin films have great promises for the future of transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) and even industrial applications.