Protective panels and display technologies are often negatively impacted by the top layer construction. Untreated glass can accumulate oils, reflect surrounding, and create harsh glare which negatively affects the user and optical clarity. Modifying these physical challenges requires glass to be engineered to respond to different surface treatments, light, oils, and touch.
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Product designers and engineers set performance criteria that are met with specific surface coatings. The treatments modify the glass surface chemically and physically at the microscale. Design and engineering choices are influenced by how individual modifications respond with glass and how these modifications affect medical displays, automotive infotainment, industrial touch panels, and consumer electronics.
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SW Glass focuses on advanced surface treatments. By analyzing different coatings, companies can evaluate technologies and coatings to determine the trade-offs and what panel durability vs optical clarity vs tactile quality improvements will be for their products.
AF stands for Anti-Fingerprint. AF glass features a specialized oleophobic and hydrophobic coating applied to the surface. This chemical layer reduces the surface tension of the glass, preventing oils, water, and other liquids from adhering to the panel. When biological oils from human fingers contact the surface, the coating forces the oils to bead up rather than spread out, minimizing the appearance of smudges.
The application of this coating typically involves vacuum deposition or liquid chemical spraying. The active compounds, often fluoropolymers, bond covalently with the silicon dioxide in the glass. This chemical bond ensures the coating remains durable over thousands of touch cycles.
Raw glass presents several operational challenges in practical applications. A high-gloss untreated screen reflects overhead lighting, obscuring displayed data. Similarly, frequent user interaction leaves behind a matrix of smudges that scatter light and reduce display contrast.
Coatings solve these inherent material flaws. They optimize light transmission, reduce maintenance requirements, and improve the tactile feel of touchscreens. In medical and industrial environments, display clarity is critical for accurate data reading and safe machinery operation. Coatings ensure the glass performs consistently regardless of ambient lighting conditions or heavy operator use.
Surface treatments generally fall into two categories: additive coatings and subtractive modifications. Additive coatings involve depositing microscopic layers of material onto the glass substrate. Subtractive modifications involve physically or chemically etching the surface to change its topography.
The three primary technologies dominating the display and cover glass industry are Anti-Fingerprint (AF), Anti-Reflective (AR), and Anti-Glare (AG). Each technology addresses a specific environmental or interactive challenge, and they are frequently combined to create composite glass solutions with multiple performance benefits.
AF coatings rely heavily on the principles of surface chemistry. By creating a low-energy surface, the glass actively repels substances with higher surface tension.
The defining property of an AF coating is its high water contact angle, typically exceeding 110 degrees. A higher contact angle means liquid droplets maintain a spherical shape and roll off the surface easily. The coating also exhibits a low coefficient of friction. This slickness reduces the drag felt by a finger gliding across a touchscreen, improving the responsiveness and tactile feedback of the device. Additionally, the fluorocarbon chains used in the coating material are highly transparent, ensuring the treatment does not negatively impact the optical clarity of the underlying glass.
AF glass is highly resistant to both aqueous and organic compounds. The fluorosilane bonding process creates a dense, uniform layer at the nanometer scale. This layer does not alter the physical thickness or weight of the glass panel in any measurable way. The surface is exceptionally smooth, which inherently makes it resistant to microscopic abrasions caused by wiping away dirt and debris.
Devices utilizing AF glass require significantly less cleaning. When wiping is necessary, a simple dry microfiber cloth easily removes accumulated oils without the need for harsh chemical solvents. The smooth tactile feel enhances the user experience on touch interfaces, reducing friction-induced fatigue during extended use. By maintaining a smudge-free surface, AF glass ensures the display's brightness and color accuracy remain consistent throughout the day.
Anti-reflective (AR) glass allows other surfaces to see through it. Standard glass, dependent on the angle of the impinging light, reflects four to eight percent of the light. AR glass uses coatings that cause destructive interference. These coatings are created through physical vapor deposition (PVD). PVD utilizes vacuum conditions to successively deposit ultra-thin layers of materials which have alternating high and low indices of refraction (e.g., TiO2 and SiO2). The thickness of the layers is precisely controlled so that the light reflecting from the various layers interferes destructively. This allows glass to transmit over 98% of light, greatly improving display visibility in bright conditions.
Anti-glare (AG) glass reflects and transmits light poorly, scattering to diffuse the light. This scattering is the result of a micro-rough surface created through chemical etching. AG glass is designed to eliminate bright reflections. These reflections and glare are often caused by artificially directional light (e.g., desk lamps) or naturally directional light (e.g., sunlight). This is achieved by the etched micro-rough surface which disperses the light wave in multiple different directions. The result is a soft matte appearance which is much more pleasing to the human eye.
AR and AG coatings enhance readability when exposed to bright light, but they do so in different ways. AR is smooth and glassy, in fact, AR increases the quantity of light supporting glass to pass through to the panel. This makes AR glass excellent for high resolution displays, where colors and contrast need to be perfect. AG glass, on the other hand, is matte and diffuses light. AG glass is excellent at removing all the reflections an eye can see, but because its micro-rough surface is producing a grit, this slightly decreases the sharpness of the display, and very high pixel density displays are susceptible to a very faint sparkle effect referred to as sparkle.
Selecting the appropriate glass treatment requires a thorough understanding of the primary operational challenges the panel will face.
AF coatings physical interactions and AR coatings target optical interactions. Therefore, an AF coating will do little to reduce window glare, and an AR coating will do nothing to shield against smudges left by fingerprints. In fact, an AR coating will show oils and smudges more than any other coating because the oils disrupt the design and the optical properties of the AR coating. For this reason SW Glass, applies an AF coating to an AR coated glass. This simply means the coatings do not only protect the AR coated glass from oils but maintains the high light transmission.
AF coated glass is an absolute necessity for high use touch screens and interfaces. This includes glass for cars, smart phones and touch kiosks.
In applications where optical performance of the glass is critical, AR coatings are used. This includes teleprompters, display screens in a museum, lens of high-end cameras, and instrument panels.
AG glass is used where ambient lighting is uncontrolled and glass is. This includes outdoor screens located in bright sunlight, industrial control panels and ATMs.
The most critical factor in deciding the coating is the intended use of the glass. For touch screens, AF is undoubtedly a must. For outdoor screens located in direct sunlight, and glass is more likely to be AG. For screens located under controlled lighting and in use with high definition medical monitors, AR is high likely to be used. It's highly recommended to consult with glass engineers such as SW Glass.
The rapid progress in display technology encourages even more innovative and advanced surface treatments that improve longevity and usability.
AF, AR, and AG treatments are the most basic treatments available for display glass. AF glass has surface tension that is manipulated to not allow bioliq byproducts and water to adhere to the glass. AR glass has the opposite effect, as it utilizes the principle of thin film interference to allow more light to pass through glass. AG glass is manufactured to scatter light in all directions, and thus does not contribute to the phenomenon of the “glare.” Each of these treatments corrects various shortcomings of glass as a display.
The next step is simply to further improve these coatings' overall mechanical strength. Coatings that possess AF capabilities are now being developed with the potential to self-heal from small abrasions. New advancements in PECVD technology are making AR coatings not only harder but more resistant to thermal shock. Finally, to get rid of the “sparkle effect” AG coatings are being developed to diffuse light and also not allow for the surface to be etched.
In today’s market, the needs for modern interactive displays to be inoperable because of a lack of optical clarity and haptic responsiveness are not negotiable. AF glass is the technology that protects the most from an active display being interacted with. By having a smaller surface energy, contaminants are less likely to settle on the surface. This protects the underlying glass as well as the display technologies from any performance degradation. By working with SW Glass, companies are able to provide the best products for consumer with the most technologically advanced treatments.
