Surface Modification of Sol-Gel Silica Antireflective Coatings by F-PMHS: A Simple Method for Improvement of Amphiphobicity

Wensheng Lin,Lianghong Yan,Xinxiang Zhang,Jiaxian Zheng,Yanmei Zheng,Hanxian Chen,Yingying Sun,Bo Jiang,Wenbin Yang

doi:10.3390/coatings8020057

Abstract

Sol-gel silica antireflective coatings (ARCs) with improved amphiphobicity were simply fabricated on BK7 glass substrates via fluorinated-poly(methylhydrogen)siloxane (F-PMHS) surface modification by the dip-coating method. The results of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) showed that F-PMHS were covalently bonded to the surface of ARCs. F-PMHS modification significantly improved hydrophobicity and oleophobicity of silica ARCs by increasing their water contact angles from 27° to 105° and oil contact angles from 17° to 45°. In addition to the improved amphiphobicity, the modified ARCs also possessed excellent transmittance. Most importantly, it was found that with increasing F-PMHS content the atom amounts and porous property of modified ARCs were almost unchanged. This result had been shown to be associated with the changes of optical property and amphiphobicity for silica ARCs, and the details were discussed.

Highlights

Sol-gel silica antireflective coatings (ARCs) have captured a considerable amount of attention in the past few decades, since they exhibit outstanding properties, such as superior homogeneity, controllable structure, adjustable refractive index, and have a wide variety of potential applications in solar panels, light sensors, and high-powered laser fusion systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The AR stability is very important for sol-gel silica ARCs used in high-powered laser fusion systems
It was reported that the hydrophobic modification of sol-gel silica ARCs was an effective method for improving their AR

Summary

Introduction

Sol-gel silica antireflective coatings (ARCs) have captured a considerable amount of attention in the past few decades, since they exhibit outstanding properties, such as superior homogeneity, controllable structure, adjustable refractive index, and have a wide variety of potential applications in solar panels, light sensors, and high-powered laser fusion systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Sol-gel silica ARCs are usually porous and polar and apt to absorb contamination from the working environment [7]. This leads to gradual decrease in transmittance of sol-gel silica ARCs. This leads to gradual decrease in transmittance of sol-gel silica ARCs This phenomenon is generally called poor AR stability. Sol-gel silica ARCs are the most commonly used ARCs in high-powered laser fusion systems, in which there are thousands of transmissive optics. The AR stability is very important for sol-gel silica ARCs used in high-powered laser fusion systems. It was reported that the hydrophobic modification of sol-gel silica ARCs was an effective method for improving their AR stability [8]. Many scholars have reported different methods to prepare hydrophobic ARCs [9,10,11,12]

Methods

Results

Conclusion