Post-treatment of 351 nm SiO_(2) antireflective coatings for high power laser systems prepared by the sol-gel method

Different post-treatment processes involving the use of ammonia and hexamethyldisilazane(HMDS) were explored for application to 351 nm third harmonic generation SiO_(2)antireflective(3ω SiO_(2)AR) coatings for high power laser systems prepared by the sol-gel method.According to experimental analysis,the 3ω SiO_(2)AR coatings that were successively post-treated with ammonia and HMDS at 150℃ for 48 h and again heat-treated at 180℃ for 2 h(N/H 150+180 AR) were relatively better.There were relatively fewer changes in the optical properties of the N/H 150+180 AR coating under a humid and polluted environment,and the increase in defect density was slow in high humidity environments.The laser-induced damage threshold of the N/H 150+180 AR coating reached 15.83 J/cm;(355 nm,6.8 ns),a value that meets the basic requirements of high power laser systems.

Modified porous silica antireflective coatings with laser damage resistance for Ti:sapphire

Porous SiO2 antireflective (AR) coatings are prepared from the colloidal silica solution modified with methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) based on the sol-gel route. The viscosity of modified silica suspensions changes but their stability keeps when MTES is introduced. The refractive indices of modified coatings vary little after bake treatment from 100 to 150℃. The modified silica coatings on Ti:sapphire crystal, owning good homogeneity, display prominent antireflective effect within the laser output waveband (750-850 nm) of Ti:sapphire lasers, with average transmission above 98.6%, and own laser induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) of more than 2.2 J/cm2 at 800 nm with the pulse duration of 300 ps.

Preparation of ultra-broadband antireflective coatings for amplifier blast shields by a sol–gel method

A type of λ/4–λ/4 ultra-broadband antireflective coating has been developed using modified low refractive silica and high refractive silica layers by a sol–gel dip coating method for amplifier blast shields of the Shen Guang Ⅱ high power laser facility(SG-Ⅱ facility). Deposition of the first layer(high refractive index silica) involves baking at 200℃ in the post-treatment step. The second layer(low refractive index, n = 1.20) uses low refractive index silica sol modified by acid catalysis. Thermal baking at temperatures no less than 500℃ for 60 min offers chemical stability, ethanol scratch resistance, and resistance to washing with water. The average residual reflection of dual-side-coated fused silica glass was less than 1% in the spectral range from 450 to 950 nm. Transmission gain has been evaluated by taking into account angular light, and the results show that the transmission gain increases with increasing light incidence. Even at 60°, the transmission spectrum of the broadband antireflective coating effectively covered the main absorption peak of Nd:glass.

Design of wideband graded-index antireflection coatings at oblique light incidence

We suggest a design method of graded-refractive-index （GRIN） antireflection （AR） coating for s-polarized or p- polarized light at off-normal incidence. The spectrum characteristic of the designed antireflection coating with a quintic effective refractive-index profile for a given state of polarization has been discussed. In addition, the genetic algorithm was used to optimize the refractive index profile of the GRIN antireflection for reducing the mean reflectance of s- and p-polarizations. The average reflectance loss was reduced to only 0.04% by applying optimized GRIN AR coatings onto BK7 glass over the wavelength range from 400 to 800 nm at the incident angle of θo = 70°.

Optimization of Multi-layer AR Coatings for GaInP/GaAs Tandem Solar Cells

The AR coatings for GaInP/GaAs tandem solar cell are simulated.Results show that,under the condition of the lack of suitable encapsulation, a very low energy loss could be reached on MgF2/ZnS system; in the case of glass encapsulation,the Al2O3/ZrO2 and Al2O3/TiO2 systems are appropriate choice; for AlInP window layer,the thickness of 30 nm is suitable.

Accuracy design of ultra-low residual reflection coatings for laser optics

Refractive index inhomogeneity is one of the important characteristics of optical coating material, which is one of the key factors to produce loss to the ultra-low residual reflection coatings except using the refractive index inhomogeneity to obtain gradient-index coating. In the normal structure of antireflection coatings for center wavelength at 532 nm, the physical thicknesses of layer H and layer L are 22.18 nm and 118.86 nm, respectively. The residual reflectance caused by refractive index inhomogeneity（the degree of inhomogeneous is between -0.2 and 0.2） is about 200 ppm, and the minimum reflectivity wavelength is between 528.2 nm and 535.2 nm. A new numerical method adding the refractive index inhomogeneity to the spectra calculation was proposed to design the laser antireflection coatings, which can achieve the design of antireflection coatings with ppm residual reflection by adjusting physical thickness of the couple layers. When the degree of refractive index inhomogeneity of the layer H and layer L is-0.08 and 0.05 respectively, the residual reflectance increase from zero to 0.0769% at 532 nm. According to the above accuracy numerical method, if layer H physical thickness increases by 1.30 nm and layer L decrease by 4.50 nm, residual reflectance of thin film will achieve to 2.06 ppm. When the degree of refractive index inhomogeneity of the layer H and layer L is 0.08 and -0.05 respectively, the residual reflectance increase from zero to 0.0784% at 532 nm. The residual reflectance of designed thin film can be reduced to 0.8 ppm by decreasing the layer H of 1.55 nm while increasing the layer L of 4.94 nm.

Modified-DBR-based semi-omnidirectional multilayer anti-reflection coating for tandem solar cells

In this paper, multilayer antireflection coatings are designed by modifying the thickness of two and three paired layer distributed Bragg reflector （DBR） structure. Our proposed DBR-based structures show antireflection behaviors, in spite of the reflection treatment in traditional DBR structures. Firstly, the proposed structures are designed to be equivalent to the theoretical ideal triple-layer （TL） antireflection coating （ARC）. Therefore, the problem of finding a suitable material for the middle layer of triple structure is solved. Simulation results show the significant equivalency for the reflectance of proposed structures to the ideal TL ARC at the same wavelengths and incident angles. Also, the design of the structure is changed in order to present the constant reflectance coefficient over a wide range of wavelengths. This structure enhances the omni-directionality of the multilayer ARC.

Employing SiO_2 Buffer Layer to Improve Adhesion of the Frequency-doubled Antireflection Coating on LBO

Frequency-doubled antireflection coatings simultaneously effective at 1064 nm and 532 nm were deposited on the lithium triborate （LiB3O5 or LBO） crystals using the electron beam evaporation method. Comparing with the sample without buffer layer, it is found that the adhesion of the sample with buffer layer of SiO2 between coating and LBO substrate is improved significantly from 137.4 mN to greater than 200 mN. And the laser-induced damage threshold is increased by 20% from 15.1 J/cm^2 to 18.6 J/cm^2. The strengthening mechanism of adhesion of the buffer layer of SiO2 is discussed by considering full plastic indentation and shear theory.

Graded index broadband antireflection coating prepared by glancing angle deposition for a high-power laser system

This paper reports that SiO2 is selected to fabricate broadband antireflection （AR） coatings on fused silica substrate by using glancing angle deposition and physical vapour deposition. Through accurate control of the graded index of the SiO2 layer, transmittance of thc graded broadband AR coating can achieve an average value of 98% across a spectral range of 300-1850 nm. Moreover, a laser-induced damage threshold measurement of the fabricated AR coating is performed by using a one-on-one protocol according to ISOl1254-1, resulting in an average damage threshold of 17.2 J/cm2.

Calculation and Improvement on External Quantum Efficiency of OLEDs

The calculation of the external quantum efficiency(η_ ext ) of organic light-emitting devices(OLEDs) is presented theoretically. The basic idea is to obtain η_ ext by calculating the fraction of the generated light that can escape through the top surface and the average transmittance over the escape cone. During the calculation, the effects of the interference, absorption and multiple reflections are neglected. Then a result of a typical 8-tris-hydroxyquinoline aluminum(Alq_ 3 )-based OLEDs on a planar glass substrate is obtained. And a twice increase in η_ ext can be achieved by using a high-index-glass substrate with an antireflection coating(SiO_ 2 ) on substrate surface.

Measurement of the Residual Modal Reflectivity of AR Coating on a SLD

The superluminescent diode has been fabricated by applying an AR coating to the output facet of the semiconductor laser for the purpose of eliminating or suitably reducing the optical feedback. An exact method for measuring the modal reflectivity of the antireflection coating to a laser diode is described. It is based on measurements of the spectrum modulation depth of the resulting superluminescent diode output spectrum at arbitrary injection current, and modal reflectivity of less than 3 × 10-4 is obtained.

1.3μm high-power superluminescent diode

The result of the evaporation of Sio/SiO2 two layer antireflection coatings monitored by the MODEL IL 400 DEPOSITION CONTROLLER is reported.A superluminescent diode with high output power is fabricated by evaporating antireflection coating on the front facet of 1.3μm buried heterostructure laser.

Ag surface plasmon enhanced double-layer antireflection coatings for GaAs solar cells

Surface plasmon enhanced antireflection coatings for GaAs solar cells have been designed theoretically.The reflectance of double-layer antireflection coatings（ARCs） with different suspensions of Ag particles is calcu-lated as a function of the wavelength according to the optical interference matrix and the Mie theory.The mean dielectric concept was adopted in the simulations.A significant reduction of reflectance in the spectral region from 300 to 400 nm was found to be beneficial for the design of ARCs.A new SiO2/Ag-ZnS double-layer coating with better antireflection ability can be achieved if the particle volume fraction in ZnS is 1%-2%.

Near-field holography enhanced with antireflection coatings--an improved method for fabricating diffraction gratings

Near-field holography（NFH）, with its virtues of precise critical dimensions and high throughput, has a great potential for the realization of soft x-ray diffraction gratings. We show that NFH with reflections reduced by the integration of antireflective coatings（ARCs） simplifies the NFH process relative to that of setups using refractive index liquids. Based on the proposed NFH with ARCs, gold-coated laminar gratings were fabricated using NFH and subsequent ion beam etching. The efficiency angular spectrum shows that the stray light of the gratings is reduced one level of magnitude by the suppression of interface reflections during NFH.

Facile and robust strategy to antireflective photo-curing coating through self-wrinkling

We reported a facile and bio-inspired strategy for obtaining antireflective （AR） coating through polymerization-induced self-wrinkling. Upon irradiation of light, the complex wrinkle micro-patterns with different morphologies were generated spontaneously on the surface of coating during photo-cross- linking, which enables the photo-curing coating can decrease reflection. The resulting photo-curing coating exhibits a high transmittance over 90% and low reflection below 5% ～ 8%, with an efficiency anti- reflection of 4% ～ 7%; compared to the flat blank coating. The successful application of these AR coatings with wrinkles pattern to encapsulate the thin film solar cells results in appreciable photovoltaic performance improvement of more than 4% ～ 8%, which benefits from the decrease of the light reflection and increase of optical paths in the photoactive layer by the introduction of wrinkling pattern. Furthermore, the efficiency improvements of the solar cells are more obvious, with a remarkable increase of 8.5%, at oblique light incident angle than that with vertical light incident angle

A moisture-resistant antireflective coating by sol-gel process for neodymium-doped phosphate laser glass

Using methyl triethoxysilicane as precursor, a moisture-resistant coating for neodymium-doped laser glass was developed by the sol-gel process. Colloidal silica was added in coating solution as modifier. The refractive index of this coating varied from 1.31 to 1.42. A porous antireflective （AR） silica coating with the index of 1.27 was coated on the moisture-resistant coating surface. The two-layer coating possessed transmission up to 99.1% at wavelength of 966 nm, surface root-mean-square （RMS） roughaess of 1.245 am, and roughness of average （RA） of 0.961 am. In the case of laser of 1053-nm laser waveleilgth and 1-ns pulse duration, the damage threshold of the two-layer coatings was more than 15 J/cm^2.

Sol-gel preparation of a silica antireflective coating with enhanced hydrophobicity and optical stability in vacuum

A new silica antireflective coating with improved hydrophobicity and optical stability in a vacuum is obtained by a two-step route. Firstly, silica sols are prepared with a sol-gel process, in which tetraethyl orthosilicate is utilized as a precursor. And by introduction of fluorine containing glycol into the sols, the porosity of silica particles and surface polarity of the coatings are decreased. Afterward, coatings are constructed with low surface roughness by modification of PMBA-PMMA. The coatings retain transmission of up to 99.6%, and laser damage threshold of about 50 J/cm^2 at a wavelenth of 532 nm （1-on-1. 10 ns）

Accumulation effect of SiO_2 protective layer on multi-shot laser-induced damage in high-reflectivity HfO_2/SiO_2 coatings

The accumulation effects in high-reflectivity （HR） HfO2/SiO2 coatings under laser irradiation are investigated. The HR HfO2/SiO2 coatings are prepared by electron beam evaporation at 1 064 nm. The laser-induced damage threshold （LIDT） are measured at 1 064 nm and at a pulse duration of 12 ns, in 1-on-1 and S-on-1 modes. Multi-shot LIDT is lower than single-shot LIDT. The laser-induced and native defects play an important role in the multi-shot mode. A correlative theory model based on critical conduction band electron density is constructed to elucidate the experimental phenomena.

Bilayer broadband antireflective coating to achieve planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells with23.9%efficiency

Although perovskite solar cells(PSCs)have achieved encouraging efficiency,the photon loss at the substrate due to light reflection has not been well addressed.Light management is promising to reduce reflection loss and realize higher power conversion efficiency(PCE)of PSCs.Here,a bilayer antireflective coating(ARC)has been designed and coated onto the backside of the glass substrate of(FAPbI_(3))_(x)(MAPbBr_(3))_(1-x)PSCs to enhance photon harvesting and consequently the device efficiency.The bottom layer of the bilayer ARC is made from a silica polymer and the top layer is made from the mixture of hexamethyldisiloxane-modified mesoporous silica nanoparticles and a fluorinated silica polymer.By adjusting the refractive index and the film thickness of each layer according to a two-layer model,enhanced glass transmittance in a broadband wavelength range can be reached,with the maximum transmittance increasing from ca.90%to over 95%.With the bilayer ARC,the maximum short-circuit current density and PCE of(FAPbI_(3))_(x)(MAPbBr_(3))_(1-x)PSCs can be increased from 25.5 m A cm^(-2)and 22.7%to 26.5 mA cm^(-2)and 23.9%with negligible changes in fill factor and opencircuit voltage.This work presents a simple yet effective strategy to enhance the efficiency of solar cells employing bilayer antirefective coatings,which can be applied to other types of solar cells.

Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets incorporated antireflective silica coating with enhanced laser-induced damage threshold

Boron nitride(BN) nanosheets incorporated silica antireflective(AR) coating was successfully prepared on fused silica substrate to improve the antilaser-damage ability of transmissive optics used in high-power laser systems. The BN nanosheets were obtained by urea assisted solid exfoliation, and then incorporated into basic-catalyzed silica sols without any further treatment. The transmission electron microscope(TEM) images indicated that the BN nanosheets generally consisted of 2–10 layers. The antireflective BN/SiO_2 coating exhibited excellent transmittance as high as 99.89% at351 nm wavelength on fused silica substrate. The thermal conductivity 0.135 W · m^(-1)· K^(-1) of the BN/SiO_2 coating with 10% BN addition was about 23% higher than 0.11 W · m^(-1)· K^(-1) of the pure SiO_2 AR coating. The laser-induced damage threshold(LIDT) of that BN/SiO_2 coating is also 23.1% higher than that of pure SiO_2 AR coating. This research provides a potential application of BN/SiO_2 coatings in high-power laser systems.