Design, preparation, and property analysis of metal/dielectric multilayer film with wavelength selectivity

Abstract Metal/dielectric multilayer films have important applications in energy-saving glass, stealth materials, solar energy utilization and other fields. In the current study, the thickness of each layer of TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 film is optimized. The effects of the number of metal/dielectric multilayer films and the incident light angle on their optical properties were investigated. The TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 film was prepared by electron beam evaporation coating technology, and their reflectance and transmittance were measured. The measurement results show that the visible light transmittance (380–780 nm) of the film can achieve 68.7%, and the infrared reflectance (780–2500 nm) can reach 95.9%. Compared with the traditional dielectric/metal/dielectric three-layer film, the visible light transmittance of the film is higher, and the solar infrared reflectance is greatly improved. In the solar radiation band (280–2500 nm), the average error between the experimental reflectance and transmittance and the theoretical prediction results is less than 0.03. The distribution of electric and magnetic fields inside the film was simulated by finite-difference time-domain method. The simulation results show that the high visible light transmittance is due to the interference resonance of electromagnetic waves inside the film. Taking Shanghai as an example, under our calculation conditions, compared with ordinary SiO 2 glass, TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 film can reduce the total energy consumption of buildings by 14.3% and refrigeration energy consumption by 17.2%.