The Effect of CeO2 Antireflection Layer on the Optical Properties of Thermochromic VO2 Film for Smart Window System

CeO2-VO2 bilayer structure was fabricated to investigate the effect of depositing CeO2 film on the optical properties of VO2 film for smart window application. CeO2 was employed as an antireflection (AR) layer material of VO2 film because of its advantages which include high transparency in the visible-near infrared range and high refractive index. All the films were deposited on soda-lime glass substrate by pulsed laser deposition method. Optical calculations were carried out using transfer-matrix method for the purpose of designing CeO2-VO2 bilayer structure with enhanced integrated luminous transmittance (Tlum) and switching efficiency (ΔTsol). The optical constants of VO2 and CeO2 films needed for the optical calculation were measured by spectroscopic ellipsometer. The curve of Tlum the shape of which depends on the thickness of CeO2 layer, was calculated in each VO2 sample, which showed two maxima. The samples were divided into two groups; one for the highest enhancement of Tlum and the other for balanced enhancement between Tlum and ΔTsol. The sample with the structure of ~60 nm CeO2 AR layer on 39-nm thick VO2 film showed large increase of Tlum (~27%) with ΔTsol of ~5%, which is the largest increase in Tlum reported so far. Two samples in the other group showed the balanced enhancement in Tlum (~57, ~50%) and ΔTsol (~9, ~10.5%). The effect of CeO2 AR layer on the optical properties of VO2 film was confirmed with the optical calculation and the experimental results. CeO2-VO2 bilayer structure showed notable improvement of optical properties compared to the single VO2 film, indicating that CeO2 layer can be effectively used as the antireflection layer while working as a protective layer that can prevent the oxidation of VO2 layer as well.

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