Infiltrating between ZrO2 and SiO2 Sol-Gel films

The single-layer SiO2, single-layer ZrO2,two-layer ZrO2/SiO2 and two-layer SiO2/ZrO2 thin films were deposited on K9 glass by Sol-Gel spin-coating method. The colloidal suspension of ZrO2 was prepared using Zr(OPr)4 and colloidal suspension of SiO2 was prepared using TEOS as precursor. The surface morphologies of SiO2 and ZrO2 thin films were observed by AFM. Ellipsometry was used to measure the thickness and refractive index of the films. UV-VIS spectrophotometer was used to measure the transmittance of the films. The results showed that the infiltration of the two-layer SiO2/ZrO2 film was much serious than that of the two-layer ZrO2/SiO2 film, which is very trifling. With the TFCalc thin film design software, the transmittance of the films was simulated with the theoretical three-layer m