Anti-reflection coatings for angled and prismatic surfaces
Date
2023
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Anti-reflection coatings play an important role in optical systems to minimize reflection losses and enhance the transmission of light through surfaces. However, designing an anti-reflection coating for angled and prismatic surfaces can be challenging due to the varying incident angles of light. In this paper, a mathematical model is proposed to design an anti-reflection thin film coating for angled and prismatic surfaces. First, the results of the thin film design using the model are simulated in software. The results show that the proposed thin film design can significantly reduce the reflection losses of light at the given incident angle. Next, co-evaporation experiments are performed to propose a method to create an anti-reflection coating of a specific refractive index. The experiment results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed deposition method. To demonstrate the practical application of the anti-reflection coating, a corner cube array is used with the anti-reflection coating applied to its prismatic surface. While the ideal structure is unmanufacturable, the gathered experimental results show a low reflectance is achieved with the anti-reflection coating applied. In conclusion, the effectiveness of the proposed anti-reflection thin film coating design for angled and prismatic surfaces has been demonstrated through simulation and experiments. Future work could involve optimizing the manufacturing methods or modifying the design to enhance manufacturability.
Description
Keywords
Anti-reflection, Co-evaporation, Corner cube, Thin film, Light