Optical simulation, corrosion behavior and long term thermal stability of TiC-based spectrally selective solar absorbers

Abstract This work is a continuation of earlier work where TiC/Al 2 O 3 spectrally selective solar absorbers were deposited onto stainless steel (SS). In this study, the optical simulation, corrosion behavior and long term thermal stability are investigated in detail. A series of TiC and Al 2 O 3 single layers are fabricated by magnetron sputtering using the same deposition parameters as described in the previous work. The optical constants and thicknesses of glass, stainless steel, TiC and Al 2 O 3 layers are obtained by CODE software using the suitable dielectric function model. Then, the structure model of SS/TiC/Al 2 O 3 is constructed and the reflectance spectra of the SS/TiC/Al 2 O 3 solar absorber is successfully simulated using CODE software. The anti-corrosion performance of SS/TiC/Al 2 O 3 solar absorbers is evaluated through electrochemical potentiodynamic polarization measurement and salt spray test. The SS/TiC/Al 2 O 3 solar absorbers have a good thermal stability in vacuum at 500 °C for 100 h. Raman analysis indicates that the increased sp 2 bonds of the coating is the main reason for the degradation of the optical properties.