Handling reflected and scattered light is of great importance in many optical applications including lasers, spectroscopic equipment, military applications, and solar energy conversion. Absorbing coatings and non-reflecting surfaces are essential in the latter applications because they can diminish light reflectance or even purely absorb light allowing for measurements at ultra-low intensities. It was shown that dielectric-metal-dielectric structures are capable to absorb light in a wide spectral range but they are not mechanically resistant. The use of diamond-like carbon films, which possess the best properties of the diamond including high transmission, extremely high hardness, and good wear properties, will enable a major improvement in the range of absorbing coating applications. They could be used as surfaces that are under constant friction or experience abrasive particles. Moreover, the thin metal layers used in the currently available absorbing coatings can be replaced by the DLC-based nanocomposite thin films with metal nanoparticles. Such films allow to preserve the mechanical integrity because of the DLC matrix and allow to minimize the need for the metal in the films that is present only in the form of the nanoparticles. Noble metals and a few more materials demonstrate expressed absorption when they are structured down to tens of nanometre range sizes. DLC:Me nanocomposite film’s properties can be tailored during the deposition and they can fully exchange the continuous metal films.
Project funding:
European Space Agency (ESA) Programme for European Cooperating States (PECS)
Project results:
The project aims at the development of ultra-thin multilayer antireflection absorber coatings (plasmonic blackbody) with an ultra-broad spectral and angular response with excellent mechanical resistance utilizing plasmonic metal nanocomposite interlayers on the basis of diamond-like carbon.
Period of project implementation: 2020-03-02 - 2022-03-02
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
Project partners: University of Southern Denmark, Company "Optonas"
