History of the development and industrial production of low thermal emissivity coatings for high heat insulating glass units

Abstract

Low-emissivity (low-E) coatings play a dominate role in high heat insulating multiple glass units with which an essential part of heat energy can be saved in buildings. With such coatings as the main part, and to a lesser part with low thermal conductive filling gases of the units' interspaces, their heat transmittance can be reduced from 6.0 W/m(2)? K for a single glazing--still glazed to a high degree--to 0.4 W/m(2) K for a triple insulating glass unit. This astonishing development is regarded as one of the most important innovations of the flat glass industry in the past century. The roots of low-E coatings in the 1960s, their startup for production in the 1970s, and, most important, further development steps accompanied by, and partly also codesigned actively by the author, are depicted.

Development of a ReaxFF potential for Ag/Zn/O and application to Ag deposition on ZnO

“…These properties make Ag perfect for coatings on solar cells and lowemissivity (Low-E) windows amongst other applications [4,5]. Low-E coatings are used to reduce heat loss through windows via the reflection of infra red radiation.…”

Reaction pathways in atomistic models of thin film growth

“…23 Such coatings are often deposited commercially by magnetron sputtering. Important interfaces for low-E coatings involve Ag on ZnO, where Ag acts as an infra red blocker.…”

Nanocoatings for architectural glass

“…Protective layers such as seed and sacrifi cial layers are also applied in low-e coatings. 39 A seed layer undercoats the metal fi lm and optimises crystalline growth of a thin layer of silver. A sub-oxidic interface layer on the silver fi lm is also called the 'sacrifi cial layer'.…”

“…An example of a typical low-e coating composition with anti-refl ective, metal, seed and sacrifi cial layers can be found in Table 7.1. 39 The aforementioned low-e coating exists in two variations as:…”