Optical Properties of VISARC™ Films

How anti-reflective coatings work

An anti-reflective coating (ARC) is a thin film of material that is processed on to a substrate in order to significantly reduce its visible light reflection. Typical glass and polymer substrates reflect a fair proportion of the light falling directly on them (approximately 4.5-6% per side), with the reflectance increasing as the viewing angle increases. This occurs at both surfaces so in total at least 9-10% of sunlight is reflected from the substrate.

VISARC™ drastically reduces reflections on glass

To cancel out reflections on glass, the refractive index (RI) of the anti-reflective coating must be 1.25. VISARC™ formulations can be tailored to have this RI and can reduce reflections to <0.1%. The reflectance spectrum is broad band which means that the average reflectance over the visible range is very low - its reflectance over 450-650nm is just 0.2%.

VISARC™ gives higher performance than other single layer ARCs

The performance of VISARC™ on glass is much better than other single layer coatings such as magnesium fluoride (MgF2) because it has an RI of 1.38 which gives a higher minimum reflectance of 1.3-1.5% as seen in the graph.

VISARC™ reduces reflections on plastics

VISARC™ formulations can have an RI between 1.23 and 1.45 which means that they can be adapted to give excellent optical properties on various materials, including but not limited to: triacetyl cellulose (TAC), polycarbonate (PC), CR39, polymethylmethacylate (PMMA), glass and high-index lens materials.

Click here to find out about processing of VISARC™.