Dependence of reflectance on angular deposition and film thickness of ZnS/Ag nanolayers

This paper presents the spectral reflectance of thermally evaporated ZnS/Ag nanostructures. The coating of ZnS/Ag nanostructures was performed in two steps while varying the film thickness and deposition angle. Silver metal wire (99.99% purity) was heated under vacuum at a pressure of \(2.5 \times 10^{-5}\) mBars and deposited on glass slide substrates in the diffusion pump microprocessor vacuum coater (Edwards AUTO 306). Pieces of zinc sulphide (99.99% purity) were heated and deposited to the glass slides previously coated with silver to form the ZnS/Ag/glass composite. The optical reflectance of the samples was studied by the UV/Vis/NIR spectrometer (Perkin Elmer Lambda 19) with UV-WinLab software. The reflectance was measured at angles of incidence between \(15^o\) and \(75^o\). Spectrophotometric studies showed that reflectance decreased with decrease in film thickness and decreased with increase in deposition angle of silver nanoparticles. The reflectance of ZnS/Ag nanostructures decreased with increase in deposition angle of zinc sulphide.