Optical Design of Porous ZnO/TiO2 Films for Highly Transparent Glasses with Broadband Ultraviolet Protection

Abstract

We present a design of a bilayer porous film structure on a glass substrate for the highly efficient ultraviolet (UV) protection with high visible-light transparency. To effectively block UVB (280–315 nm) and UVA (315–400 nm), titanium dioxide (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO) are used as absorbing layers having the appropriate coverages in different UV ranges with extinction coefficients, respectively. We show the process of refractive index (RI) matching by controlling porosity (Pr). Effective RIs of porous media with TiO2 and ZnO were calculated based on volume averaging theory. Transmittances of the designed films with different effective RIs were calculated using rigorous coupled-wave analysis method. Using admittance loci method, the film thickness was optimized in center wavelengths from 450 to 550 nm. The results show that the optimal design provides high UV shielding performance at both UVA and UVB with high transparency in the visible range. We also analyze electrical field distributions in each layer and angle dependency with 3D HSV color map.