Effect of TiN Interfacial Layer on the Microstructure and Optoelectronic Properties of AZO/Ag/AZO Multilayer Films

To investigate the effect of the TiN interfacial layer on the microstructure and optoelectronic properties of AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer films, four configurations, namely AAA, ATAA, AATA, and ATATA, were deposited on the glass substrates by magnetron sputtering. All the films exhibited a preferential ZnO (002) orientation. When TiN was located above the Ag layer, the ATAA film preserved a pronounced Ag (111) diffraction feature and exhibited the best overall optoelectronic performance, the average transmittance increased from 78.4% for AAA to 85.9%, the resistivity decreased from 7.2 × 10^-5 to 6.3 × 10^-5 Ω·cm, and the figure of merit increased from 0.64 to 0.71 Ω^-1. In contrast, when Ag was grown directly on TiN, the Ag (111) diffraction peaks of the AATA and ATATA films were markedly weakened, the average transmittance decreased to 59.0% and 62.0%, respectively, and the resistivity increased sharply to 1.2 × 10^-3 and 9.5 × 10^-4 Ω·cm, respectively. These results demonstrate pronounced interfacial asymmetry and stacking-sequence dependence in the TiN regulation of AZO/Ag/AZO films, with the ATAA configuration exhibiting the best structure-optics-electronics synergy.