J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Effect of Ag layer thickness on optical and electrical

properties of ion-beam-sputtered TiO2/Ag/TiO2
multilayer thin film
Rajan Singh1, Mukul Gupta2, and S. K. Mukherjee1,*

1
Department of Physics, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi 835215, India
2
UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, University Campus, Khandwa Road, Indore 45200, India

Received: 25 October 2021 ABSTRACT

Accepted: 29 January 2022 TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films have been deposited by Ion-beam sputtering
technique with different Ag thickness. X-ray reflectivity technique with 3-layer
Ó The Author(s), under fitting model has been used to calculate thickness, density, and roughness of the
exclusive licence to Springer multilayer films. Gaussian fitting of XRD and Raman data is used to detect the
Science+Business Media, LLC, crystalline growth of films while FTIR data confirm the presence of metal layer
part of Springer Nature 2022 in the films. A phonon confinement effect originating from decrease in crystallite
size is also observed with blue shift in some of the Raman active modes. Effect of
Ag layer thickness on optical and electrical properties of multilayer films has
been presented including a comparative study of our data with previously
reported work on TiO2/Ag/TiO2 transparent conducting oxides. Transmittance
of multilayer films in visible region (550 nm) has increased from 65 to 81% with
increase in Ag thickness. The band gaps calculated from Tauc plot of these films
follow Burstein–Moss effect. Sheet resistance has decreased from 15.41 to 5.92
X/h while carrier concentration and mobility show an increasing trend from
5.94 9 1021 to 1.35 9 1022 and 6.83 to 13.72 cm2/Vs, respectively, with the
increase in Ag mid-layer thickness. Haacke’s Figure of Merit (FOM) is recorded
to be 7.9 9 10-3 X-1.

1 Introduction TCOs. In later phases, these are even doped with Al-,
Nb-, Ga-like materials for enhanced electrical and
Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have attracted optical properties. In order to replace ITO films for its
huge attention in thin film development area due to toxic nature and cost ineffective reasons, metal oxides
its wide applications including solar cells, optoelec- like TiO2 and ZnO have been widely investigated and
tronic devices, sensors, LCDs, and LEDs. A variety of found promising results. TiO2 have been studied for
metal oxides like TiO2, ZnO, SnO2, and Nb2O5 have various applications due to their chemical stability,
been extensively exploited for developing efficient high photosensitivity, high photocatalytic activity,

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 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

and low toxicity [1]. Also, TiO2 has wide band gap target (99.99%) of size 100 9 100 9 1 mm was used
([ 3 eV) and high refractive index, which makes it with similar dimension of silver target (99.99%).
highly photoactive in the UV region and an efficient Oxygen and argon gases were used during the
solar cell material [2, 3]. sputtering process. The base pressure inside the
In recent development, multilayer thin films have chamber was 2 9 10-5 Pa, while the working pres-
been a great area of interest compared to single-layer sure was 2 9 10-3 Pa. Ti and Ag targets were bom-
TCOs due to its improved optical and electrical barded with ion beam with beam current of 30 mA
behavior. Multilayer TCO has a combination of thin and 1000 eV ion-beam energy. Depending upon the
metal layer sandwiched between different metal deposition rate of TiO2 and Ag, the precise sputtering
oxide layers (dielectrics). The thickness ratio of time for both the targets was assigned alternately to
dielectric and metal layer plays an important role in obtain the multilayer film with desired thickness
electrical and optical properties of the film. TiO2 is a (Table 1). TiO2 thickness of both the upper and lower
desired dielectric material for multilayer films due to layer was fixed at 30 nm while Ag (middle layer)
its wide band gap, high refractive index (2.7), high thickness was varied at 2 nm, 4 nm, and 8 nm. The
transparency in visible region, and better chemical samples were named TAT A (single-layer TiO2—
stability. Ag is preferred as middle layer in oxide/ 60 nm), TAT B (TiO2—30 nm/Ag—2 nm/TiO2—
metal/oxide (O/M/O) because it results in low sheet 30 nm), TAT C (TiO2—30 nm/Ag—4 nm/TiO2—
resistance and high transmittance in visible region. 30 nm), and TAT D (TiO2—30 nm/Ag—8 nm/
The variable Ag thickness is important in finding the TiO2—30 nm). After the deposition, TAT films were
optimum electrical and optical balance of TCO for annealed at 500 °C in a high vacuum environment.
industrial application. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) measurement was per-
The precise thickness variation of mid-layer rang- formed on multilayer films between 2 and 5° with
ing within few nanometers is challenging and step size of 0.01° using Bruker D8 Discover diffrac-
requires much controlled film growth. Although tometer with CuKa (0.154 nm) source. Parratt32
various sputtering methods, such as direct current software was used for XRR data fitting and calcula-
(DC) magnetron sputtering and radio frequency (RF) tions of thickness, density, and roughness of the
magnetron sputtering, are used to develop TiO2/Ag/ multilayer films. Crystallographic properties were
TiO2 multilayer TCOs, ion-beam sputtering (IBS) has analyzed using Bruker D8 Advanced X-ray diffrac-
many advantages over others. It uses a high-energy tometer (XRD). Scanning electron microscope (SEM)
ion-beam source over the sputtering target which and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) data were
produces a dense material on substrate resulting into obtained by field emission scanning electron micro-
high refractive index compared to other deposition scope (FESEM, Sigma 300, Carl Zeiss Microscope
techniques. The scattering loss is much lower for ion- Ltd., Germany) operated at 20 kV. UV–Visible spec-
beam-sputtered films than using other methods [3]. It tra of multilayer films were carried in transmission
also provides better control over deposition param- mode using Lambda 20, PerkinElmer UV–Visible
eters like current density and energy of source ion spectrometer. Raman modes were identified using
beam, for desired growth of films. Renishaw Invia Raman spectrometer (514.6 nm Ar
This work has demonstrated the development of laser) across 100–1000 cm-1. Fourier transformed
TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer thin films with variation in infrared (FTIR) analysis was done using PerkinElmer
Ag layer thickness. A comparative analysis of elec- Frontier spectrometer across 400–4000 cm-1. Hall
trical and optical properties of the developed TCOs
with previous work has been presented.
Table 1 TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer deposition parameters

Sample O2 (sccm) Deposition time (min.)

2 Experimental details
TAT A (TiO2) 2.5 42.52
TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer thin films were deposited TAT B (TiO2/Ag/TiO2) 2.5 21.26/0.20/21.26
on quartz and Si (100) substrates using Ion-beam TAT C (TiO2/Ag/TiO2) 2.5 21.26/0.39/21.26
sputtering system (IBS) consisting of hot-cathode TAT D (TiO2/Ag/TiO2) 2.5 21.26/0.77/21.26
Kaufman type 1.5 kV gridded ion source. Titanium
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

measurement was done by Van der Pauw’s method determination of different layers. Critical angle (hc) is
using four-point probe technique. Keithley 2400 an important parameter for calculating electron
sourcemeter was used during the hall measurements density and mass density. In our experiment, critical
with magnetic field of 1 Tesla. angle ranged between 0.52 and 0.55° while the critical
momentum transfer (Qc) was observed to be
0.035–0.04 Å-1 for TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films.
3 Result and discussion Singh et al. (2019) have described the elaborated
theoretical model to calculate the density and
3.1 XRR roughness of thin film [6]. Upon applying best suit-
able theoretical fitting model and calculations, the
X-ray reflectivity is a powerful non-destructive tech- thickness, density, and roughness of our TiO2/Ag/
nique to calculate the thickness, density, and rough- TiO2 multilayer films are presented in Table 2. Based
ness of thin films through electron density profile as a on these data it was observed that, with the increase
function of depth. Figure 1 represents the 3D sche- in Ag mid-layer thickness, density, and roughness of
matic diagram of TiO2 and TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer multilayer films also increased substantially.
films with different Ag thickness. Figure 2a depicts
schematic diagram of interaction of X-rays with 3.2 XRD
multilayer films in terms of reflectivity and momen-
tum transfer. The reflected X-rays at each surface XRD spectra of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films with
create interference fringes (Kiessig fringes) with different Ag thickness (0–8 nm) are depicted in Fig. 3.
numerous oscillations resulting into a reflectometry Peaks were fitted with Gaussian profile to determine
pattern. Thickness of the multilayer film is related to peak position, FWHM, and intensity. Table 3 shows
Bragg’s law as the crystallite size, micro-strain, and dislocation
nk ¼ 2ðd1 sin ai1 þ d2 sin ai1 þ d3 sin ai3 Þ; ð1Þ density of multilayer films. The crystallite size was
determined using Scherrer formula and the micro-
where, d1, d2, and d3 are thickness of different layers
strain was calculated using Williamson–Hall equa-
of film. In XRR technique, a monochromatic beam of
tion [8, 9]. The inset image in Fig. 3 represents the
X-ray (ai) is incident on thin film surface and reflected
magnified version of TiO2 and Ag peaks (35–58°) of
at af with wave vector ki and kf, respectively. The
TAT D multilayer spectra for better view and analy-
momentum transfer along the surface normal (z) is
sis. Upon deconvolution with Gaussian profile fitting,
given by [4, 5]
it was observed that all films were crystalline in
4p nature. The diffracted peaks at 2h values 26.52°,
Q z ¼ kf  ki ¼ sin ai ; ð2Þ
k 37.98°, and 54.35° refer to TiO2 anatase (JCPDS
where k is the X-ray wavelength. 84-1286) crystal planes (101), (004), and (211),
Figure 2b depicts the X-ray reflectivity profile of respectively. Few low intensity yet prominent peaks
TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films along with TiO2 of Ag were observed at 43.98°, 64.26°, and 77.18° in
monolayer. The reflectivity curve was fitted with some of the films. These peaks correspond to (200),
theoretical model of independent TiO2, Ag, and H2O (220), and (311) planes, respectively (JCPDS 04-0783).
adsorbate layers using parratt32 software [6, 7]. A TAT A contains only anatase (101) peaks, whereas
good fitting of reflectivity curve with appropriate TAT B, TAT C, and TAT D confirm the presence of
theoretical model results in precise thickness both TiO2 and Ag. With the increase in Ag thickness,
the intensity of peaks increases along with improved

Fig. 1 3D diagram depicting

TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer film
with different Ag thickness
 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Fig. 2 (a) Schematic diagram presenting interaction of x-rays with different layers of film. (b) Electron density profile of TiO2/Ag/TiO2
multilayer with appropriate fitting model. Ag reflectivity curve is clearly visible (red circle) between the two TiO2 curves

Table 2 Thickness, density,

and roughness of TiO2/Ag/ Sample Layer thickness (nm) Density (g/cm3) Roughness (nm)
TiO2 multilayer films
TAT A 60 3.75 0.9
TAT B 30/2/30 4.01/9.1/4.05 1.2/1.1/1.8
TAT C 30/4/30 4.54/10.9/4.56 1.4/1.9/1.8
TAT D 30/8/30 4.61/11.4/4.59 1.5/2.0/2.2

any of their mixed phases. Quartz do have a peak at a

similar location. However, such a peak does not
appear in the XRD profile of our quartz substrate (see
Fig. 3). Quartz substrate is well known to have
induced lattice mismatch against the deposited film
giving rise to high lattice strain [12]. This is an
important factor in thin film crystalline growth as
high lattice strain may lead to crystal defects and
dislocations. Increase in film thickness reduces the
strength of strain in the films [13].
Apart from crystal dislocations, crystallite size
plays major role in induced lattice strain in thin films
due to grain boundary effect. When crystallite size
decreases, the stress caused by internal surface ten-
sion induces lattice strain. However, when crystallite
size increases, the lattice strain becomes weak due to
Fig. 3 XRD spectra of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films. Crystalline lower stress field from grain boundaries [14]. The
TiO2 with anatase phase is observed along with Ag peaks crystallite size of the multilayer films depicts similar
behavior with the increase in Ag thickness. As the
crystallinity of multilayer films [10, 11]. The prefer- crystallite size increases from * 11 to 19 nm, a
ential growth of crystalline TiO2 structure occurs in decrease in micro-strain from 1.27 9 10-2 to
the direction (101) plane and Ag grows in (200) plane. 1.03 9 10-2 is observed. Dislocation density, which
The peak at 23.88° cannot be indexed as it neither indicates the amount of defects in the films, is seen to
matches with any of the TiO2 phases nor with Ag nor be decreasing with the increase in Ag thickness. This
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Table 3 Average crystallite

size, micro-strain, and Sample Average Crystallite size (nm) Micro-strain Dislocation density
dislocation density of TiO2/ TiO2 Ag (10-2) (1011/cm2)
Ag/TiO2 multilayer films
TAT A 11.1 – – 8.1
TAT B 13.2 4.5 1.27 5.7
TAT C 14.5 5.9 1.16 4.8
TAT D 19 7.5 1.03 2.8

shows that TAT D multilayer film with 8 nm Ag Raman modes: 1A1g, 2B1g, and 3Eg. The Raman shifts
thickness has fewer defects compared to other films. observed at 144 cm-1 (Eg), 197 cm-1 (Eg), 395 cm-1
(B1g), 515 cm-1 (A1g/B1g), and 636 cm-1 (Eg) corre-
3.3 FESEM/EDX spond to the characteristic peaks of tetragonal TiO2
anatase phase [18, 19]. The active mode Eg (144 cm-1,
FESEM images of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films are 395 cm-1, and 636 cm-1) refers to O–Ti–O symmetric
shown in Fig. 4. Microstructure of all the films are stretching vibrations, B1g (395 cm-1 and 515 cm-1)
smooth, dense, and free from cracks. Pure TiO2 and relates to O–Ti–O symmetric bending vibrations, and
Ag (2 nm) film do not show much difference in sur- A1g (519 cm-1) refers to anti-symmetric bending
face morphology. Ag (4 nm) film looks more dense vibrations in anatase lattice [20]. B1g (395 cm-1) is not
and shows slight agglomeration on the surface. Some observed in TAT A monolayer but present in subse-
dark spots are visible which appears due to Ag quent multilayers while B1g (515 cm-1) is slightly red
agglomeration over the TiO2 surface, forming island- shifted in TAT A. There is a blue shift observed in Eg
like structure confirming the Volmer–Weber model of (multilayers) which may occur due to non-stoi-
multilayer films [15, 16]. These island agglomerate in chiometry and phonon confinement effect [21]. This
Ag (8 nm) film, thereby, forming a continuous layer. effect can be related to the decrease in crystallite size
Inset image of Fig. 4d represents the crystallite size of in multilayers as explained in XRD results. A red shift
TAT D films using imageJ software. The average in B1g mode is also observed in multilayer films
crystallite size is * 20 nm which is close to the val- suggesting distortion in TiO2 lattice with the presence
ues calculated by XRD spectra using Scherrer of inter-metallic layer [22]. Increase in Raman peak
formula. intensity is also observed similar to XRD results
EDX compositional analysis of multilayer films is confirming improved crystallinity with increase in
presented in Fig. 5. The elemental composition of Ag layer thickness. Also, the increase in total peak
films shows the presence of both Ti and Ag in mul- area, calculated upon deconvolution, implies the
tilayer films along with Si substrate due to high-en- improvement in short-range atomic ordering and
ergy EDX ion beam penetrating into the Si substrate. local microstructure upon the increase in Ag thick-
The wt% of Ag increases from 0.2 to 0.7% confirming ness [18].
the increase in Ag thickness in subsequent multilay-
ers. The overall composition of Ag in TiO2/Ag/TiO2 3.5 FTIR
Multilayer films ranges between 2.5 and 10.3 wt%
which is close to the expected value of Ag composi- Figure 7 presents the FTIR analyses of TiO2/Ag/TiO2
tion in multilayer by volume from 3.2 to 11.7% [17]. multilayer films done along 400 cm-1 to 4000 cm-1
(stacked) to detect the trace of TiO2/Ag and func-
3.4 Raman tional bonding related to it. The peak at 483 cm-1 is
related to bending vibration (Ti–O–Ti) bonds in TiO2
Figure 6 presents micro-Raman analyses of TiO2/ lattice [23, 24]. Weak band at 550 cm-1 relates to
Ag/TiO2 multilayer films performed over transverse optical phonon vibration of Ag–O bond
100–800 cm-1 to obtain the vibrational modes present [25]. This Ag–O bond is present only in TiO2/Ag/
in samples. Raman spectra were fitted with Gaussian TiO2 multilayer films but not observed in TiO2
profile to obtain peak positions, FWHM, intensity, monolayer film (TAT A) which is in accordance with
and area under the peak. TiO2 anatase has six active the experiment. Although, no effect was observed in
 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Fig. 4 FESEM image of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films with the increase in Ag thickness. (a) TiO2 monolayer, (b) Ag 2 nm, (c) Ag 4 nm,
and (d) Ag 8 nm. Inset image represents the crystallite size estimated by imageJ software

the absorption peak related to the increase in Ag The doublet peak around 2000 cm-1 (inset) may have
thickness. Ananth et al. (2016) reported the presence originated due to instrumental grating error.
of Ag–O metal oxide vibration between 650 and
800 cm-1 but it was not observed in our FTIR spectra. 3.6 UV–Visible
The peak at 775 cm-1 and 939 cm-1 is related to
stretching vibrations of Ti–O–Ti and Ti–O bonding, Figure 8a presents UV–Visible spectra (%t) of TAT
respectively [26]. The inset of Fig. 7 presents the same multilayer films with variation in Ag thickness. TAT
FTIR spectra (1200 and 4000 cm-1) but in high scale multilayers show the transmittance between 65 and
for clarity. Peaks at 1433 cm-1, 2860 cm-1, 2960 cm-1 80% at 550 nm wavelength with TAT D being the
are observed due to symmetric and anti-symmetric most optically transmitting film. But in higher
vibrations of surfactants present in the samples [27]. wavelength region (1000–2500 nm), the transmittance
Peak at 1640 cm-1 represents the bending vibrations changes as a parabolic function with TAT A showing
of Ti–OH bonding due to chemically absorbed water the highest transmittance and TAT D lowest. This
molecule [24, 28]. Gao et al. (2003) have reported the phenomenon happens due to the scattering of light at
presence of OH group between 3100 and 3600 cm-1 Ag and TiO2 interface, while absorption of light is
while Latha et al. reported similar functional group due to the electronic transition from 3d to 4s orbitals
between 3400 and 3600 cm-1 but very weak bonds above Fermi level. But this behavior can only be
were observed in our samples in those range [23, 29]. observed in multilayers with mid-layer thickness
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Fig. 5 EDX elemental composition of Ti and Ag (wt%) in multilayer films with the increase in Ag thickness. (a) TiO2 monolayer, (b) Ag
2 nm, (c) Ag 4 nm, and (d) Ag 8 nm

Fig. 6 Raman spectra of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films. Peaks

Fig. 7 FTIR spectra of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films scanned
were fitted with Gaussian profile
from 400 to 4000 cm-1. Inset picture represents the scaled-up
image of the spectra (1200 to 4000 cm-1) for clarity
below 10 nm where Ag islands are discontinuous.
These discontinuous islands limit the mean free path
of conducting electrons resulting in the decrease in where em is dielectric constant, R is particle radius,
transmittance [30]. The dielectric function depending and C is constant. This leads to lower transmittance
upon the size of the Ag islands can be given by [31] for smaller Ag islands below a critical value. It is
observed that lower Ag mid-layer thickness leads to
C
eR ¼ em þ ; ð3Þ small discontinuous Ag islands forming below the
R
 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Fig. 8 (a) UV–Vis spectra of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films in transmittance mode as function of mid-layer Ag thickness. (b) Tauc plot of
multilayer films for optical band gap calculation

TiO2 layer. Due to the scattering of light from the shift in Fermi level resulting in the widening of band
TiO2/Ag interface, the average transmittance is low gap. The shift in Fermi level is given by
(\ 80%). The multilayer thin films transmittance is  2=3
h2 3N
strongly affected by the surface plasmonic effect due DE ¼  ð5Þ
8mVC p
to high optical absorption. This results in decrease in
average transmittance with small island size from So, widening of band gap is calculated by
lower Ag thickness. With the increase in Ag thickness
E0 ¼ EG þ DE; ð6Þ
above critical value, the continuous islands decrease
the light scattering resulting in high transmittance where mVC is the effective mass of conduction and
[32]. valence band, N is free electron density, EG is the
In visible region, higher transmittance was minimum energy separation of thin film band [35].
observed at 700 nm wavelength due to coupling
between incident light and surface plasmon of the Ag 3.7 Electrical properties
islands. The decrease in optical transmittance in IR
region is observed due to the reflection depending Electrical properties of TAT multilayer largely
upon surface plasmon absorption. The plasmon fre- depend upon the highly conductive metallic mid-
quency (xp) can be described from Drude–Lorentz layer. Sheet resistance, mobility, and carrier concen-
free electron model as tration are calculated as a factor of Ag layer thick-
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ness (Fig. 9). Results from few other authors are
ne2 important in the discussion for a comparative study.
xp ¼ ; ð4Þ
me0 Loka et al. (2017) have reported the decrease in sheet
resistance as a factor of - 3.07 (slope) with the
where n is the carrier density and e0 is the permit-
increase in percentage Ag thickness in TiO2/Ag/TiO2
tivity in free space [33].
multilayer (total thickness) from 5.9 to 15.8% [36].
Figure 8b presents the band gap of TAT multilayer
Similarly, the carrier concentration and mobility is
films calculated by tauc plot method ranging between
reported to be increasing as a factor of 1.12 and 0.48,
3.47 and 3.54 eV. The shift in band gap of multilayer
respectively. Dhar et al. (2013) have reported the
films is due to the increase in free charge carriers with
decrease in sheet resistance to factor of - 9.95 with
Ag layer thickness which leads to Burstein–Moss
Ag content from 8.3 to 21.7% [31]. The author has also
effect [34]. In this effect, free charge carriers fill the
reported the increase in carrier concentration and
states near the bottom of conduction band leading to
mobility as a factor of 1.01 and 1.14, respectively. Kim
et al. (2015) have reported similar trend for sheet
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

Fig. 9 (a) Sheet resistance, (b) carrier concentration, and (c) Mobility of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films compared with references against
the increase in Ag layer thickness

resistance, carrier concentration, and mobility as a It is observed that conduction through the dielec-
factor of -0.38, 0.46, and 0.88, respectively, along tric dominates below critical Ag thickness forming
15.8–23.8% Ag content [10]. Jia et al. (2004) have the discontinuous islands. With the increase in island
reported similar trend in sheet resistance with a fac- size and Ag thickness, decrease in resistivity is
tor of - 0.78 with Ag content from 23.1 to 45.9% [37]. observed due to quantum tunneling between the
The high mid-layer Ag thickness (6–17 nm) between island gaps. The conductivity (r) in lower Ag island
10-nm-thick TiO2 does not show a sharp drop in condition is expressed by the equation
sheet resistance rather a very low decreasing rate.  
W
Zhu et al. (2016) have reported similar decline in r / exp 2bL  ; ð7Þ
kb T
sheet resistance with factor of - 0.732 along 11.8–25%
Ag thickness [38]. This work reports the decrease in where W denotes the charging energy of Ag island, L
sheet resistance from 15.4 to 5.92 X/h as a factor of is island separation, b is the tunneling exponent of
-1.47 from percentage Ag thickness of 6.3–14.3%. electron wave functions in the insulator, k is the
Carrier concentration varies from 5.94 9 1021 to Boltzmann constant, and T is the temperature. With
1.35 9 1022 cm-3, whereas mobility varies from 6.8 to the increase in Ag thickness, the island forms a uni-
13.7 cm2 V-1 S-1 with a factor of 1.23 and 1.11, form layer. In this case, the conductivity in multilayer
respectively. film is derived by the combination of carrier
 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

concentration and mobility of conducting electrons region (550 nm) and band gap was calculated to be
due to surface boundary scattering. The conductivity 3.47–3.54 eV for TAT multilayer films. Sheet resis-
in this case is given by tance of TAT multilayers decreased with Ag thick-
r 3 1 ness while carrier concentration and mobility
/ ð1  pÞk log ; ð8Þ increased with Ag thickness. TAT D with 8 nm Ag
r0 4 k
thickness showed lowest sheet resistance of 5.92 X/h
where p is the electron distribution function at sur-
with carrier concentration 1.35 9 1022 cm-3 and
face, r0 is conductivity of bulk material, k = t/k0
mobility 13.72 cm2/Vs. Haacke’s Figure of Merit
[31, 39]. Haacke’s figure of merit (FOM) was calcu-
(FOM) was recorded highest for TAT D to be
lated by the formula:
7.9 9 10-3 X-1 at 8 nm Ag thickness. A well-matched
T 10 comparative plot of electrical properties with other
uTC ¼ ; ð9Þ
RS previous reported data is presented in the manu-
where T is Transmittance and RS is sheet resistance. script. Optical and electrical properties have further
TAT D multilayer with Ag thickness 8 nm gives the room of improvement by optimal selection of TiO2
best figure of merit with 7.9 9 10-3 X-1 [40]. and Ag thickness including other deposition param-
eters for an optimal TCO. These findings may help in
the growth of high-performance TCOs for many
4 Conclusion future applications.

TiO2/Ag/TiO2 multilayer films were deposited using

ion-beam sputtering technique with mid-layer Ag
thickness as 2 nm, 4 nm, 8 nm, while TiO2 thickness Author contributions
is 60 nm. XRR analysis showed the increase in both
All authors contributed to the study conception and
roughness and densities of multilayer with the
design. Material preparation, data collection, and
increase in Ag thickness. XRD analyses confirmed the
analysis were performed by RS. The first draft of the
presence of both TiO2 (anatase) and Ag in multilayer
manuscript was written by SKM and all authors
films with preferential growth in [101] and [200]
commented on previous versions of the manuscript.
planes, respectively. Crystallite size is in multilayers
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
compared to TiO2 monolayer. The crystallite size of
both TiO2 and Ag increased while micro-strain and
dislocation density decreased with the increase in Ag Funding
thickness. A lattice mismatch between quartz sub-
strate and multilayer film is also observed giving rise This work is supported by UGC-DAE CSR Indore,
to sharp peak at lower 2h value. FESEM images India with Grant no CSRIC/CRS-88/2018-19/1360.
confirm dense, smooth, and crack-free films. Ag
islands were visible as dark spots over surface in 4
and 8 nm Ag films. EDX analyses confirmed the Data availability
presence of TiO2 and Ag in our films. The composi-
tion (wt%) of Ag ranged between 2.5 and 10.3% by The datasets generated during and/or analyzed
volume. Raman spectra confirmed TiO2 anatase during the current study are available from the cor-
phase with 6 Raman active modes detected in the responding author on reasonable request.
films, and their intensities increased with Ag thick-
Declarations
ness confirming crystalline nature of multilayer films.
Blue shift of Eg band in multilayers confirmed pho- Conflict of interest We wish to confirm that there
non confinement effect due to the increase in Ag mid- are no known conflicts of interest associated with this
layer thickness. FTIR detected the presence of Ag–O publication and there has been no significant finan-
bond at 550 cm-1 confirming the presence of Ag in cial support for this work that could have influenced
multilayer films. UV–Visible results showed trans- its outcome.
mittance ranging between 65 and 81% in visible
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron

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