Development of new coated glasses assisted by a computer program

This paper presents the performances of our computer code developed ro minimize research efforts required for the development of new coatings on glasses. Computer assisted investigations of the optical and energetical properties of stackings on glass allow the selection of the most promising multilayers. Optical and energetical constraints can be encountered by optimizing the materials and the thicknesses of the layers. The stability of the properties of the multilayers versus thickness variations during production, or versus observation angle can be predicted. The quality of all these predictions is strongly dependent on the knowledge of the optical indices of thin film materials. The use of bulk indices may lead to predictions that are not correct for thin film stackings in practice. A subroutine of the program allows the determination of thin film optical indices. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.