SILVER-BASED LOW-EMISSIVITY COATINGS FOR ARCHITECTURAL WINDOWS - OPTICAL AND STRUCTURAL-PROPERTIES

Spectrally selective coatings are, nowadays, deposited onto architectu ral windows to be employed in commercial and residential buildings for the purpose of saving energy. In this work, the fundamental optical a nd structural properties of two types of low-emissivity silver-based c oatings deposited onto glass, Ag and SnO2/Ni-Cr/Ag/Ni-Cr/SnO2 (Vitrage a couches avec une forte reflexion des rayonnements thermiques, Europ ean Patent EP 0 506 507 B1) are analyzed. It has been demonstrated tha t the silver-based multilayer coatings give an efficient heat isolatio n due to their low emissivity values, thus not deteriorating the optic al properties in the visible range given by the glass substrate. From Atomic Force Microscopy measurements it has been determined that the A g layer has a more homogeneous grain size when is deposited onto the N i-Cr layer than when is deposited onto glass. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scienc e B.V. All rights reserved.