Development of a statistical method to help evaluating the transparency/opacity of decorative thin films

Abstract In this paper, we present a statistical method that allows evaluating the degree of a transparency of a thin film. To do so, the color coordinates are measured on different substrates, and the standard deviation is evaluated. In case of low values, the color depends on the film and not on the substrate, and intrinsic colors are obtained. In contrast, transparent films lead to high values of standard deviation, since the value of the color coordinates depends on the substrate. Between both extremes, colored films with a certain degree of transparency can be found. This method allows an objective and simple evaluation of the transparency of any film, improving the subjective visual inspection and avoiding the thickness problems related to optical spectroscopy evaluation. Zirconium oxynitride films deposited on three different substrates (Si, steel and glass) are used for testing the validity of this method, whose results have been validated with optical spectroscopy, and agree with the visual impression of the samples.