Process for making of glass articles with optical and easy-to-clean coatings

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11208717-B2
Application number	US-201815950780-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 11, 2018
Priority date	Nov 30, 2011
Publication date	Dec 28, 2021
Grant date	Dec 28, 2021

Abstract

A process in which both an optical coating, for example, an AR coating, and an ETC coating are deposited on a glass substrate article, in sequential steps, with the optical coating being deposited first and the ETC coating being deposited second, using the same apparatus and without exposing the article to the atmosphere at any time during the application of the optical coating and ETC coating.

First claim

We claim:

1. A process for vacuum depositing without breaking vacuum at least one optical coating and an easy-to-clean (ETC) coating onto a glass substrate, the process comprising:
introducing a horizontally-oriented glass substrate to be coated into a coating chamber of a coating apparatus under a pressure of less than or equal to 10 −4 Torr, the glass substrate having a first surface, a second surface opposite the first surface, and a thickness between the first surface and the second surface,
depositing the at least one optical coating onto the horizontally-oriented glass substrate;
reorienting the glass substrate in an ETC coating chamber such that the glass substrate is a vertically-oriented glass substrate prior to depositing the ETC coating;
depositing the ETC coating on the at least one optical coating of the vertically-oriented glass substrate in the ETC coating chamber; and
removing the glass substrate from the coating apparatus.

2. The process of claim 1 , wherein the at least one optical coating is deposited using inline sputtering.

3. The process of claim 2 , wherein during the inline sputtering, there is a distance between a sputtering source and the glass substrate, wherein the distance is from about 30 mm to about 100 mm.

4. The process of claim 1 , wherein the ETC coating is deposited using chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, electron beam deposition or thermal evaporation source deposition.

5. The process of claim 1 , wherein the at least one optical coating is a multilayer coating comprising alternating layers of a high refractive index material H having a refractive index greater than 1.7 and less than or equal to 3.0, and one of (i) a low refractive index material L having a refractive index greater than or equal to 1.3 and less than or equal to 1.6 or (ii) a medium refractive index material M having a refractive index greater than 1.6 and less than or equal to 1.7, laid down in the order H(L or M) or (L or M)H, wherein each H(L or M) or (L or M)H pair of layers is a coating period; and a thickness of an H layer and an (L or M) layer, independent of each other, in each coating period is from about 5 nm to about 200 nm.

6. The process of claim 5 , wherein a number of coating periods in the multilayer coating is from 2 to 20, and the multilayer coating has a thickness from about 100 nm to about 2000 nm.

7. The process of claim 5 , wherein a last layer of a last coating period of the multilayer coating is a layer of the high refractive index material H, and a capping layer of SiO 2 is applied over the layer of the high refractive index material H.

8. The process of claim 1 , wherein the ETC coating source materials are selected from the group consisting of:
a perfluoroalkyl silane of formula (R F ) y SiX 4-y , where R F is a linear perfluoroalkyl having a carbon chain length of 6-130 carbon atoms from the silicon atom to an end of the carbon chain at a greatest length of the carbon chain, X=Cl, acetoxy, —OCH 3 or —OCH 2 H 3 and y=1 or 2; and
a perfluoropolyether silane.

9. The process of claim 1 , wherein a thickness of the ETC coating is from about 1 nm to about 20 nm.

10. The process of claim 1 , wherein the glass substrate is selected from the group consisting of borosilicate glass, aluminosilicate glass, soda-lime glass, chemically strengthened borosilicate glass, chemically strengthened aluminosilicate glass.

11. The process of claim 1 , wherein the glass substrate has a thickness of from about 0.2 mm to about 1.5 mm.

12. The process of claim 1 , wherein the glass substrate is a chemically strengthened aluminosilicate glass having a compressive stress of greater than 400 MPa.

13. The process of claim 1 , wherein the ETC coating is selected from the group consisting of fluoroalkyl silanes, perfluoroalkyl silanes, perfluoroalkyl alkyl silanes, perfluoropolyether silanes, perfluoropolyether alkoxy silanes, perfluoroalkyl alkoxy silanes, fluoroalkyl silane (non fluoroalkyl silane) copolymers, mixtures of fluoroalkyl silanes, and mixtures thereof.

14. The process of claim 1 , further comprising post-treating the glass substrate at a temperature of from about 60° C. to about 200° C. for a period of time from about 5 minutes to about 60 minutes to facilitate cross-linking between ETC molecules.

15. The process of claim 14 , wherein the glass substrate is post-treated in an environment having a relative humidity RH of 40%<RH<100%.

Assignees

• Corning Inc

Inventors

• Lee Christopher Morton
• Lu Xiao-Feng
• Ouyang Xu
• Zhang Junhong

Classifications

• C03C17/3482 Primary

  comprising silicon, hydrogenated silicon or a silicide · CPC title

• C23C14/0694

  Halides · CPC title

• C23C14/568 Primary

  Transferring the substrates through a series of coating stations (C23C14/562 takes precedence) · CPC title

• C03C2217/76

  Hydrophobic and oleophobic coatings · CPC title

• C23C14/18

  on other inorganic substrates · CPC title