COATED GLAZING

Abstract

A coated glazing comprising: a transparent glass substrate, wherein a surface of the substrate is directly or indirectly coated with at least one layer based on a transparent conductive coating (TCC) and/or at least one layer based on a material with a refractive index of at least 1.75, and wherein said surface has an arithmetical mean height of the surface value, Sa, of at least 0.4 nm prior to said coating of said surface.

Claims

1-25. (canceled)

26. A coated glazing comprising: a transparent glass substrate, wherein a surface of the substrate is directly or indirectly coated with at least one layer based on a transparent conductive coating (TCC) and/or at least one layer based on a material with a refractive index of at least 1.75, and wherein said surface has an arithmetical mean height of the surface value, Sa, of at least 0.4 nm prior to said coating of said surface.

27. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein said surface has an arithmetical mean height of the surface value, Sa, of at least 0.6 nm prior to said coating of said surface.

28. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein said glazing exhibits a haze of at least 0.4%.

29. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein the TCC is a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and wherein the TCO is one or more of fluorine doped tin oxide (SnO2:F), zinc oxide doped with aluminium, gallium or boron (ZnO:Al, ZnO:Ga, ZnO:B), indium oxide doped with tin (ITO), cadmium stannate, ITO:ZnO, ITO:Ti, In2O3, In2O3-ZnO (IZO), In2O3:Ti, In2O3:Mo, In2O3:Ga, In2O3:W, In2O3:Zr, In2O3:Nb, In2-2xMxSnxO3 with M being Zn or Cu, ZnO:F, Zn0.9Mg0.1O:Ga, and (Zn,Mg)O:P, ITO:Fe, SnO2:Co, In2O3:Ni, In2O3:(Sn,Ni), ZnO:Mn, and ZnO:Co.

30. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein each layer of the at least one layer based on a TCC has a thickness of 100 nm, but at most 450 nm.

31. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein the material with a refractive index of at least 1.75 is one or more of SnO2, TiO2, and ZnO.

32. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein each layer of the at least one layer based on a material with a refractive index of at least 1.75 has a thickness of at least 50 nm, but at most 200 nm.

33. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein the glazing further comprises at least one layer based on an oxide selected from the group consisting of SiO2, SnO2, TiO2, silicon oxynitride and aluminium oxide.

34. The glazing according to claim 33, wherein one layer of said at least one layer based on an oxide of a metal or of a metalloid is located in direct contact with said surface of the glass substrate.

35. The glazing according to claim 33, wherein each layer of the at least one layer based on an oxide of a metal or of a metalloid has a thickness of at least 10 nm, but at most 35 nm.

36. The glazing according to claim 26, wherein the glazing is heat treatable.

37. A method of manufacture of a coated glazing comprising the following steps in sequence: a) providing a transparent glass substrate, b) etching a surface of the substrate with an acidic gas, and c) directly or indirectly coating said surface with at least one layer based on a transparent conductive coating (TCC) and/or at least one layer based on a material with a refractive index of at least 1.75.

38. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 37, wherein step b) is carried out using Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD).

39. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 37, wherein both steps b) and c) are carried out using Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD).

40. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 37, wherein step c) further comprises directly or indirectly coating said surface of the glass substrate with at least one layer based on an oxide of a metal or of a metalloid.

41. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 37, wherein the surface area of the outer surface of the layer furthest from the glass substrate is greater than the surface area of the outer surface of the layer furthest from the glass substrate of a correspondingly coated glazing manufactured by the same method except that step b) was omitted.

42. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 37, wherein the acidic gas comprises one or more of a fluorine- or chlorine-containing acid such as HF and/or HCl, and/or phosphoric acid.

43. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 37, wherein the acidic gas further comprises water vapour.

44. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 43, wherein the ratio of the volume of water vapour to the volume of acid in the acidic gas is at least 0.5 and at most 30.

45. The method of manufacture of a coated glazing according to claim 43, wherein step b) is carried out using a precursor gas mixture comprising HF and/or HCl, nitrogen and water.

46. A coated glazing manufactured by the method according to claim 37.

47. A method of using an acidic gas to increase the haze exhibited by a coated glazing comprising: a) providing a transparent glass substrate, b) etching a surface of the substrate with an acidic gas, and c) directly or indirectly coating said surface with at least one layer based on a transparent conductive coating (TCC) and/or at least one layer based on a material with a refractive index of at least 1.75.

48. A PV module incorporating the coated glazing according to claim 26.

49. An LED incorporating the coated glazing according to claim 26.

50. An OLED incorporating the coated glazing according to claim 26.

Description

EXAMPLES

[0076] All treatments and layer depositions were carried out using CVD. The acidic gas treatments of the glass surface were all carried out on uncoated glass.

[0077] The Examples shown in Table 1 were conducted on a float line using a 3.2 mm glass substrate, at a line speed of 14.4 m/min. The glass temperature upstream of a coater A was 680.5 C.

[0078] For the uncoated samples, the glass surface treatment was carried out using the following gas flows in coater A: [0079] The HF only treatment consisted of 85 slm (standard litres per minute) of N.sub.2 gas and 10 slm of HF gas. [0080] The HCl only treatment consisted of 85 slm of N.sub.2 gas and 15 slm of HCl gas. [0081] The HCl+H.sub.2O treatment consisted of 10 slm of N.sub.2 gas, 30 slm of HCl gas, and 161 slm H.sub.2O.

[0082] For the coated samples, the glass surface treatment was carried out (prior to coating) using similar gas flows in coater A: [0083] The HF only treatment consisted of 85 slm of N.sub.2 gas and 10 slm of HF gas. [0084] The HCl only treatment consisted of 85 slm of N.sub.2 gas and 30 slm of HCl gas. [0085] The HCl+H.sub.2O treatment consisted of 25 slm of N.sub.2 gas, 30 slm of HCl gas, and 161 slm H.sub.2O.

[0086] A SiO.sub.2 layer (25 nm thick) was deposited over the treated glass surface using coater B2 (downstream from A): [0087] The gas flows for the silica deposition consisted of 370 slm of N.sub.2 carrier gas, 200 slm of He carrier gas, 27 slm of O.sub.2, 32 slm of C.sub.2H.sub.4, and 4.5 slm of SiH.sub.4.

[0088] A SnO.sub.2:F layer (330 nm thick) was deposited over the treated glass surface using coaters C and D (next coaters downstream from B2): [0089] The gas flows for coater C consisted of 140 slm of He carrier gas, 230 slm of O.sub.2, 31 pounds/hr dimethyltin dichloride, 12 slm HF, and 322 slm H.sub.2O. [0090] The gas flows for coater D consisted of 140 slm of He carrier gas, 230 slm of O.sub.2, 31 pounds/hr dimethyltin dichloride, 15 slm HF, and 267 slm H.sub.2O.

[0091] The haze values of the samples were measured in accordance with the ASTM D 1003-61 standard.

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Percentage haze values exhibited by uncoated glass and coated glass samples after treating the samples as shown. In accordance with the present invention, the coated glass samples were treated during their manufacture, prior to the deposition of the SiO.sub.2 and SnO.sub.2:F layers. Haze (%) Coated Glass (Glass/ 25 nm SiO.sub.2/330 nm Uncoated Glass SnO.sub.2:F) Untreated 0.08 0.37 HF only 0.10 0.49 HCl only 0.16 3.36 HCl and H.sub.2O 0.06 4.60

[0092] Table 1 shows that for the coated glass sample of the present invention, all of the treatments (carried out prior to coating) result in improved haze values in comparison with the untreated sample, and in comparison with the correspondingly treated uncoated samples. Moreover, the two treatments that use HCl result in far higher haze values than the HF treatment. The high haze achieved with the HCl treatments is even more pronounced when compared to the correspondingly treated uncoated samples.

[0093] The invention is not restricted to the details of the foregoing embodiments. The invention extends to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), or to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the steps of any method or process so disclosed.