Fabrication and surface plasmon coupling studies on the dielectric/Ag structure for transparent conducting electrode applications

Abstract

The dielectric/Ag structures were fabricated on glass substrates using various metal oxides as dielectrics and their optical properties were studied through transmittance and ellipsometry measurements. The structures with 10 nm Ag film deposited on various metal oxides (Al2O3, ZrO2, SrTiO3, TiO2, CaCu3Ti4O12, WO3 and HfO2) of 30 nm showed enhancement in transmittance compared to bare Ag film in the visible region. This enhancement in transmittance was explained through suppression of surface plasmon coupling at the dielectric/Ag interface. The surface plasmon wave-vector (k(SP)) was calculated using the measured dielectric constants for the dielectric and Ag through ellipsometry and employed to analyze the transmittance data. The k(SP)/k(0) and delta(SP) values were estimated and used to interpret the enhanced visible transmittance for different dielectric/Ag structures. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America