Epitaxial ultrathin Au films on transparent mica with oxide wetting layer applied to organic light-emitting devices

Abstract

Ultrathin and transparent metal films are considered as desirable materials to substitute indium-tin oxide based transparent electrodes. In this work, we report that an Al-doped ZnO layer effectively induced the formation of epitaxial ultrathin and ultrasmooth Au films on mica. The ultrathin Au film shows optimum electrical conductivity, optical properties, and high tolerance to mechanical bending, including a low sheet resistance of 8 Ω/sq and a high average transmittance of 80.1%, and maintains low electric resistivity even after 1000 continuous bending cycles. Moreover, the Au/AZO anode-based organic light-emitting diode was fabricated with the maximum luminance intensity of 32 540 cd/cm2, which demonstrates that it is promising for application in next generation optoelectronic devices.