Kamble, Hrishikesh; Sancho-Parramon, Jordi; Janicki, Vesna (2025) Tuning the optical properties of Ag layers in the infrared region via thermally induced ion diffusion. Optical Materials, 171 . ISSN 0925-3467
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Abstract
Infrared (IR) optical coatings are conventionally fabricated using thick dielectric multilayers, but their fabrication is costly and may induce mechanical stress. Alternatively, very thin films with large optical losses have been proposed as building blocks for interferential coatings. Semi-continuous metal films near percolation may display strong optical losses in IR but their optical properties’ tunability is difficult to control. Here, we investigate thermal annealing as a post-deposition strategy to tune the morphology and optical behaviour of Ag/TiO2/glass systems. Optical characterization based on spectroscopic ellipsometry data confirmed tunability of absorption intensity along with layer thinning and reduction of free electron density by varying annealing conditions. These findings are related to the change of layer morphology and Ag and Na ion in-diffusion to the TiO2 layer from the top layer and substrate respectively. Competition of different ionic species into TiO2 is proposed as the key mechanism for tuning absorbance in IR by annealing of Ag/TiO2/glass systems. These results identify annealing-driven ion diffusion as a versatile route to engineer tunable IR coatings, offering new opportunities for low-cost, scalable photonic devices.
| Item Type: | Article | ||||||||
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | infrared optical coatings; metal thin films; annealing; ion diffusion | ||||||||
| Subjects: | NATURAL SCIENCES > Physics NATURAL SCIENCES > Physics > Condensed Matter Physics |
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| Divisions: | Division of Materials Physics | ||||||||
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| Depositing User: | Vesna Janicki | ||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 09 Jan 2026 08:29 | ||||||||
| URI: | http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/10696 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.optmat.2025.117765 |
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