Fabrication of highly efficient transparent metal thin film electrodes using Direct Laser Interference Patterning

The demand of highly efficient transparent electrodes without the use of rare earth materials such as indium requires a new generation of thin metallic films with both high transparency and electrical conductivity. For this purpose, Direct Laser interference Patterning was used to fabricate periodic hole-like surface patterns on thin metallic films in order to improve their optical transparency by selective laser ablation of the material and at the same time keeping the electrical properties at an acceptable level.
Metallic films consisting of aluminum and copper with film thicknesses ranging between 5 and 40 nm were deposited on glass substrates and treated with nanosecond and picosecond pulse laser system..In order to analyze the processability of the films, the laser ablation threshold for each material as function of the layer thickness and pulse duration was firstly determined. After analyzing these initial experiments, the samples were structured with a 1.7 μm spatial period hole-like-pattern using three beam direct laser interference patterning. The structural quality of the fabricated structures was analyzed as function laser energy density (laser fluence) using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atom force microscopy (AFM). Finally, optical and electrical properties of the films were characterized using optical spectroscopy, as well as surface impedance measurements.