Abstract
Cerium oxide, in addition to its catalytic properties, is also known for its optical properties such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation filtering and a relatively high refractive index ( n > 2 ), which makes it an excellent candidate for multifunctional coatings. Here, we focus on the optical properties of thin deposits (≲2 μ m) of densely packed C e O 2 nanoparticles, which we assemble using two evaporation-based techniques: convective self-assembly (CSA, a type of very slow blade-coating) to fabricate large-scale coatings of controllable thickness—from tens of nanometres to a few micrometers—and microfluidic pervaporation which permits us to add some micro-structure to the coatings. Spectroscopic ellipsometry yields the refractive index of the resulting nano-porous coatings, which behave as lossy dielectrics in the UV-visible regime and loss-less dielectrics in the visible to infra-red (IR) regime; in this regime, the fairly high refractive index (≈1.8) permits us to evidence thickness-tunable anti-reflection on highly refractive substrates, such as silicon, and concomitant enhanced transmissions which we checked in the mid-IR region.
Highlights
Cerium oxide nanoparticles have been applied in diverse fields including catalysis, luminescence, and nanomedicine, etc. [1,2,3]
The coatings we obtain have simple yet non trivial structures and they perform very well from an optical point of view, in particular for anti-reflection on highly refractive materials, which we demonstrate on silicon as a case study
We measure the refractive index of these coatings which behave as lossy dielectrics in the ultraviolet (UV)-visible regime and loss-less dielectrics in the visible to infra-red (IR) regime; in the latter regime, the fairly high refractive index (≈1.8) permits us to demonstrate thickness-tunable anti-reflection properties on substrates with a high refractive index such as silicon substrates, and concomitant enhanced transmission which we tested in the mid-IR region, thereby covering a large spectral range
Summary
Cerium oxide nanoparticles have been applied in diverse fields including catalysis, luminescence, and nanomedicine, etc. [1,2,3]. We re-demonstrate that the evaporation-based blade-coating method is efficient for producing coatings of controllable thickness, in this case, out of CeO2 dispersions. These results conform to the pioneering work of O. We measure the refractive index of these coatings which behave as lossy dielectrics in the ultraviolet (UV)-visible regime and loss-less dielectrics in the visible to infra-red (IR) regime; in the latter regime, the fairly high refractive index (≈1.8) permits us to demonstrate thickness-tunable anti-reflection properties on substrates with a high refractive index such as silicon substrates, and concomitant enhanced transmission which we tested in the mid-IR region, thereby covering a large spectral range
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