Electrical, Optical and Photocatalytic Properties of Silver Nanowires Deposited Indium Tin Oxide Thin Film

Abstract

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) have been recently studied as transparent conductive materials due to their high transparency and low electrical resistivity. Despite the merits of AgNWs, their electrical conductivity can be easily decreased by oxidation and/or sulfurization. Some researchers proposed that AgNWs deposited metallic oxide layer such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), Indium Zinc Oxide (IZO), and Aluminiume doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) to improve chemical stability of AgNWs. In this study, we prepared AgNWs deposited ITO layer on the glass substrate by using spin coating and facing targets sputtering (FTS) method. Electrical, optical and photocatalytic properties of as-prepared samples were investigated. As a result, all samples have transmittance of over 80% in the visible range (300-800 nm) and lower sheet resistance of about 20 ohm/sq compared to single ITO (<80 ohm/sq) films. The photocatalytic activity (PCA) of as-prepared samples was measured by the degradation of methylene blue dissolved in water. Their absorbance intensity decreased due to PCA. As a result, we confirmed the photocatalytic effect of ITO/AgNWs thin film.