Transparent and flexible Sb-doped SnO2 films with a nanoscale AgTi alloyed interlayer for heat generation and shielding applications.

Kyung-Su Cho,Han-Ki Kim

doi:10.1039/c7ra12988b

Abstract

Transparent and flexible Sb-doped SnO2 (ATO) films with a nanoscale AgTi alloyed interlayer were fabricated for use as plasma damage-free, indium-free, thermally stable electrodes for high performance heat generating films and shielding films in smart windows. The AgTi alloy-inserted ATO film on a PET substrate showed a low sheet resistance of 6.91 ohm per square and a high optical transmittance of 90.24% without thermal annealing or intentional substrate heating. Even after deformation using an outer bending radius of 4 mm, the ATO film with a AgTi interlayer showed a constant sheet resistance due to the mechanical robustness of the AgTi interlayer. Furthermore, the AgTi-inserted ATO film showed a constant resistance even after annealing at 500 °C, unlike the Ag-inserted ATO films. Furthermore, we demonstrated the feasibility of the AgTi-inserted ATO films as transparent heat generating films and shielding films for smart windows. The effective heat generation and shield performance of the ATO/Ag–Ti/ATO multilayer suggests that the multi-functional ATO/Ag–Ti/ATO films can be used to create energy-efficient smart windows for building energy management systems and automobiles.

Highlights

The rapid development of building energy management systems (BEMSs) requires high performance heat generating lms and heat shielding lm-based smart windows.[1,2,3,4,5] In addition, automobiles require high performance heat generating and heat shielding windows for removing ice or frost on the window and blocking sunlight from outside
We demonstrated the feasibility of the AgTi-inserted ATO films as transparent heat generating films and shielding films for smart windows
The effective heat generation and shield performance of the ATO/Ag–Ti/ATO multilayer suggests that the multi-functional ATO/Ag–Ti/ATO films can be used to create energy-efficient smart windows for building energy management systems and automobiles

Summary

Introduction

The rapid development of building energy management systems (BEMSs) requires high performance heat generating lms and heat shielding lm-based smart windows.[1,2,3,4,5] In addition, automobiles require high performance heat generating and heat shielding windows for removing ice or frost on the window and blocking sunlight from outside. Ag-based heat generating and shielding lms have very low optical transmittance due to the inherent opacity of the metal lm.[7,8] it is important to develop highly transparent and exible metalbased electrodes for heat generating and shielding lms to replace conventional Ag-based semitransparent electrodes. We investigated the electrical, optical, morphological, and mechanical properties of ATO lms on PET substrates with a thermally evaporated Ag–Ti alloy layer for use as transparent, exible, thermally stable electrodes for heat generating and shielding lms in smart windows. We demonstrated the feasibility of thermally evaporated ATO/Ag–Ti/ATO lms for high performance simultaneous heat generating lms and heat shielding lms

Experimental

Fabrication and evaluation of heat generating lms and heat shielding lms

Results and discussion

Conclusions