The design of transparent conductive ZnO/metal/ZnO multilayers for incidence from 0° to 70°

Both antipolarization and antireflection coatings have been designed and optimized by means of inhomogeneous coatings theory to obtain ZnO/metal/ZnO multilayer systems of low resistance and high transmittance of wavelength from 400 to 700 nm. The thicknesses of each layer and the antireflection coatings have been optimized to improve the optical properties. Ag is found to be the best choice for the middle metal layer. The transmittance of optimized MgF2/ZnO/Ag/ZnO is over 98% with the angle of incidence of 0 degrees. After adding antireflection coatings of only six layers, both the p transmittance and the s transmittance of the antireflection coatings/ZnO(30 nm)/Ag/ZnO(30 nm) system are over 84% throughout the visible range with the angle of incidence of 70 degrees. The design result indicates that the transmittance has been increased greatly. This design has importance for the broad application of transparent conductive ZnO/metal/ZnO multilayers for incidence of broad angle range.