High-performance thermochromic VO(2)-based coatings with a low transition temperature deposited on glass by a scalable technique

We report on high-performance thermochromic ZrO(2)/V(0.982)W(0.018)O(2)/ZrO(2) coatings with a low transition temperature prepared on glass by a low-temperature scalable deposition technique. The V(0.982)W(0.018)O(2) layers were deposited by a controlled high-power impulse magnetron sputtering of V target, combined with a simultaneous pulsed DC magnetron sputtering of W target to reduce the transition temperature to 20–21 °C, at a low substrate surface temperature of 330 °C in an argon–oxygen gas mixture. ZrO(2) antireflection layers both below and above the thermochromic V(0.982)W(0.018)O(2) layers were deposited at a low substrate temperature (< 100 °C). A coating design utilizing a second-order interference in the ZrO(2) layers was applied to increase both the luminous transmittance (T(lum)) and the modulation of the solar transmittance (ΔT(sol)). The ZrO(2)/V(0.982)W(0.018)O(2)/ZrO(2) coatings exhibit T(lum) up to 60% at ΔT(sol) close to 6% for a V(0.982)W(0.018)O(2) thickness of 45 nm, and T(lum) up to 50% at ΔT(sol) above 10% for a V(0.982)W(0.018)O(2) thickness of 69 nm.