Contactless electroreflectance spectroscopy with a semitransparent capacitor made of a silver mesh of ultrathin lines

Abstract

Semitransparent electrodes operating in the broad spectral region are needed for many applications and one of them is contactless electroreflectance (CER) spectroscopy. In this work, the technology of printed electronics has been applied to fabricate mesh-like semitransparent electrodes composed of ultrathin (10 µm) silver lines of different densities. These electrodes have been printed on borosilicate glass and used in CER measurements. It has been shown that the CER signal is linearly proportional to the applied voltage and inversely proportional to the distance. In addition, a shadow effect has been observed for some distances because of non-transparent silver paths. Finally, a phenomenological formula has been proposed to describe the intensity of the CER signal in the capacitor with the semitransparent electrode. Moreover, the mesh-like printed electrodes have been applied to measure CER spectra for van der Waals crystals and perspectives for further development of semitransparent electrodes for CER measurements have been discussed.