Several modern applications require antireflective transparent materials. We try to avoid reflections in our screens and clean transparent coatings are essential in solar panels. Scientists have been looking for a clean, cheap and durable solution for quite long. And this is exactly what Prof. Isabel Rodriguez et al. have recently reported in Nanoscale.
Thanks to this collaboration (IMDEA Nanociencia & IMDEA Materiales) a new coating system has been developed. The methodology involves the fabrication of sub-wavelength moth-eye nanofeatures onto transparent surface composite films in a combined processing step of nanoparticle coating and surface nanoimprinting.
With this approach they’ve been able to reduced the optical reflection losses from values of 9% of typical PMMA plastic films to an optimum value of 0.6%.
We made this picture (which appeared in the back cover of Nanoscale) with the supervision of Prof. Rodriguez. It represent both the high transmission coefficient of this new coating system and its durability.