Pure and calcium-doped silica and titanium dioxide thin films were prepared by the sol-gel method. Two different metallic substrates, i.e. stainless steel (316L) and titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V), were used for thin film deposition. Physicochemical properties and roughness of the thin films derived were investigated using the Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microsco...

The thin film formation of magnetron sputtered polycrystalline coatings was monitored by in situ X-ray reflectivity measurements. The measured intensity was analyzed using the Parratt algorithm for time-dependent thin film systems. Guidelines for the on-line interpretation of the data were developed. For thick coatings, the experimental resolution needs to be included in the data evaluation in ...

Oblique-angle deposition of indium tin oxide (ITO) is used to fabricate optical thin-film coatings with a porous, columnar nanostructure. Indium tin oxide is a material that is widely used in industrial applications because it is both optically transparent and electrically conductive. The ITO coatings are fabricated, using electron-beam evaporation, with a range of deposition angles between 0 d...

Metal coated Hollow Glass Waveguides (HGWs) incorporating single dielectric thin films have been widely used for the low-loss transmission of infrared radiation in applications ranging from surgery to spectroscopy. While the incorporation of single dielectric film designs have traditionally been used in metal/dielectric coated HGWs, recent research has focused on the development of alternating ...

Some laser applications produce high power densities that can be dangerous to equipment and operators. We have fabricated thin-film coatings by using molecular electrostatic self-assembly to create a spectrally selective absorbing coating that is able to withstand thermal fluctuations from -20 degrees C to 120 degrees C. We made the thin-film coatings by alternating deposition of an organic dye...

A radiation test plan for thin-film photovoltaic technologies focused on a MEO flight experiment is outlined. The proton and electron radiation response of thin film, amorphous Si solar cells and CuInGaSe2 solar cells, with and without space coatings, is presented. The degradation of the photovoltaic output under penetrating and junction-damaging proton irradiation, and 0.6 MeV and 1 MeV electr...

Narrow bandpass filters (NBPF) are an important type of thin film filter technology that have become commonplace within the electrooptics industry. These devices are indispensable in fields such as analytical instrumentation, microscopy and telecommunications. NBPF are typically characterized as having high transmission with steep roll-offs and broad isolation. Thin film coating designs that me...

In this paper a novel anti-reflection (AR) coating based on silicon nano-bars is designed and its impact on the performance of crystalline silicon (c-Si) thin-film solar cells is extensively studied. Silicon nano-bars with optimized size and period are embedded on top of the active layer, under a 100nm Si3N4 layer. As a result of the proposed layer stack, an inhomogeneous intermediate layer wit...

Silver nanoparticle-containing silica sol–gel coatings were synthesised using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), HNO3 and AgNO3 as the main precursors and 3-(2-aminoethylamino)propyl trimethoxysilane (DIAMO) as a stabiliser. The stability and the barrier properties of the coatings were studied by means of UV/Vis spectroscopy, FTIR reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS), spectroscopic Ellipsome...

This article presents a short history and the recent advancement of the development of chemical vapor deposition technologies to form thin film gas barrier coatings on PET bottles and other plastic containers in food and beverage containers. Among different gas barrier enhancement technologies, coating can show unique performance where relatively high gas barrier enhancement is possible to vari...