Thin film

Patent Granted A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. Electronic semiconductor devices and optical coatings are the main applications benefiting from thin-film construction. A familiar application of thin films is the household mirror, which typically has a thin metal coating on the back of a sheet of glass to form a reflective interface. The process of silvering was once commonly used to produce mirrors. A very-thin-film coating (less than about 50 nanometers thick) is used to produce two-way mirrors. The performance of optical coatings (e.g., antireflective, or AR, coatings) are typically enhanced when the thin-film coating consists of multiple layers having varying thicknesses and refractive indices. Similarly, a periodic structure of alternating thin films of different materials may collectively form a so-called superlattice which exploits the phenomenon of quantum confinement by restricting electronic phenomena to two-dimensions. Work is being done with ferromagnetic and ferroelectric[1] thin films for use as computer memory. It is also being applied to pharmaceuticals, via thin-film drug delivery. Thin-films are used to produce thin-film batteries. Thin films are also used in dye-sensitized solar cells.