Ultrathin metal film:An emerging transparent electrode for the optoelectronics industry

Ultrathin metal films are increasingly becoming important for applications where transparent and conductive electrodes are required. With respect to the widely used transparent conductive oxides, such as indium tin oxide, they can overcome the strong ultraviolet absorption and incompatibility with some organic materials. In this paper we report the successful deposition of sputtered nickel films, whose electrical and optical responses have been studied using four point probe method and spectrometry respectively. Sufficiently thin nickel layers can possess similar levels of transparency in the visible range, larger ultraviolet transmittance and larger electrical conductivity than indium tin oxide layers. These results, together with the observed temperature stability, confirm that ultra thin metal films are serious competitors to transparent conductive oxides.