Hierarchical Nanostructure on Glass for Self Cleaning and Antireflective Properties

In practical operation, the exposed surfaces may get dirty thus degrade the performance of devices. So the combination of self cleaning and antireflection is very desirable for use in outdoor photovoltaic and displaying devices, self cleaning windows and car windshields. For the purpose of self cleaning, the surface needs to be either superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic. However, in practice AR in the visible region and self cleaning are a pair of competitive properties. To satisfy the requirements for superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic surfaces, high surface roughness is required. But it usually cause severely light scattering. Photo-responsive coatings (TiO2, ZnO etc.) can lead to superhydrophilic. However, the refractive indices are high. Thus for porous structure, controlling pore size in the underwavelength scale to reduce the light scattering is very crucial for highly transparent and self cleaning antireflection coating. Herein, we demonstrate a simple method to make high performance broadband antireflection layer on the glass surface, by "carving" the surface by hot alkali solution. Etched glass has superhydrophilic surface. By chemical modification, it turns to superhydrophobic. Enhanced transparency (up to 97%) in a broad wavelength range was obtained by short time etching. Also antifogging effect has been demonstrated, which may offer advantage for devices working at high humidity environment or underwater. Compositional dependence of the properties was observed by comparing three different commercially available glasses.