Low emissivity Ag/Si/glass thin films deposited by sputtering

Si was deposited on the glass substrate as an interlayer for the 2-D growth of Ag thin films because Si has a strong binding energy against Ag and can lead to a negative surface energy change in Ag/glass. The Si interlayer induced an extremely smooth and flat Ag surface, which effectively reduced the resistance and enhanced the reflectance in the IR region. In particular, Ag (9 nm)/Si (3 nm)/glass showed 0.074 emissivity and ∼91% reflectance in the IR region with 67% transmittance in the visible region.