Popis: |
Hydrophobic coatings enable the manufacture of easy-to-clean surfaces having dust- and water-repellent properties. In this work, a hydrophobic coating is deposited as a top layer on an antireflective (AR) multilayer system comprising a MgF2 upper layer to produce low reflectance optical surfaces at a normal incident angle in the visible spectrum with dust- and waterrepellent properties for applications in precision optics. We report on the preparation and characterization of the optical properties of hydrophobic coatings deposited using a vacuum evaporation process and a commercially available water repellent substance. By means of a grazing incidence X-ray reflectometer it is shown that the hydrophobic coating can be considered, from an optical point of view, as two adjacent thin layers having specific thicknesses and densities. In fact, the hydrophobic layer is one monolayer comprising molecular chains with anchoring groups responsible for the chemical bond with the substrate material and functional groups responsible for the water- and oil-repellent properties. Optical constants are determined using a spectroscopic ellipsometer and are taken into account in the final multilayer system design. High performance AR coatings having an average reflectance of 0.14% at 7° incident angle in the 400-680nm spectral range together with a pleasing purple-red reflex color are produced. Coated lenses exhibit an excellent abrasion resistance, environmental stability, resistance to cleaning agents, homogeneity and water repellence with contact angles against water higher than 110°. |