Thermally evaporated Cu-Al thin film coated flexible glass mirror for concentrated solar power applications

Alex, Sherine and Kumar, Ranjith and Chattopadhyay, Kamanio and Barshilia, Harish C and Basu, Bikramjit (2019) Thermally evaporated Cu-Al thin film coated flexible glass mirror for concentrated solar power applications. In: MATERIALS CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, 232 . pp. 221-228.

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Abstract

This paper reports the development of mechanically flexible reflective coatings of Cu-Al intermetallic alloy on flexible glass (PG) substrates for possible concentrated solar power application. Thin films of Cu-Al intermetallic alloys were deposited on 100 mu m thick FG substrates using resistive thermal evaporation of arc melted Cu-Al bulk alloy. At the optimized evaporation conditions, smooth intermetallic alloy thin films with homogeneous composition (Cu0.78Al0.22) were obtained. At a coating thickness of 160 nm, average specular and total reflectance of similar to 84% and similar to 92% respectively, were achieved. The films exhibited hydrophobic nature with a contact angle of 102 degrees, implying the possibility of developing a self-cleaning ability. The analytical calculation involving alloy compositional dependence of plasma frequency reveals the prospect of further modulating the reflectance property by carefully tailoring thin film composition. Additionally, hard intermetallic thin film provides the opportunity of developing mirrors that may not require top protective coatings.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	MATERIALS CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
Publisher:	ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belong to ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA
Keywords:	Intermetallics; Thin film; Front surface reflectors; Thermal evaporation
Department/Centre:	Division of Chemical Sciences > Materials Research Centre Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research Division of Mechanical Sciences > Materials Engineering (formerly Metallurgy) Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Centre for Nano Science and Engineering
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2019 11:00
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2019 11:00
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/63874

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