Abstract
The beginning of “Thin Film Science” can possibly be traced back to the observation of Grove in 1852 who noted that metal films are formed by sputtering of cathodes with high energy positive ions. Since then it has come a long way and today it has become a fully-fledged academic discipline which has led to many industrial and household products. There is a phenomenal rise in thin metal films research, like their counterpart dielectric films, due to their extensive applications in electronics, optics, aviation, space science, defence and several other industries. These investigations have led to numerous inventions in the form of active devices and passive components such as piezo-electric devices, sensor elements, storage of solar energy and its conversion to other forms, reflecting and anti-reflecting coatings and many others. Furthermore, due to compactness, better performance and reliability coupled with low cost production, thin film devices and components are preferred over their bulk counterparts.
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Ghosh, D.S. (2013). Basics of Ultrathin Metal Films and Their Use as Transparent Electrodes. In: Ultrathin Metal Transparent Electrodes for the Optoelectronics Industry. Springer Theses. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00348-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00348-1_2
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