Effect of Rapid Thermal Annealing on the Electrical and Optical Properties of TiO2/Ag/TiO2 Thin Films

TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 (TAT) tri-layer films were deposited using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering and direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering on a glass substrate, and then rapid thermal annealed at 150 and 300 C for 10 minutes.The influence of annealing temperature on the optical and electrical properties of the films was investigated.As annealing temperature was rapidly increased from room temperature to 300 C, the grain size of the TiO 2 (004), ( 204) and Ag (200) increased from 36.8, 14.3, 22.1 nm to 43.2, 16.6, 23.4 nm, respectively and the electrical resistivity decreased from 4.64 10 -5 cm to 2.79 10 -5 cm.Also, the average visible transmittance increased from 82.7 % to 84.9 %.In addition, the electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness of TAT films was also increased to 31.7 db after annealing at 300 C.These results demonstrate that post-deposition rapid thermal annealing is an effective method for enhancing the electrical and optical properties of TAT films.