What a timely subject. I'm having some windows done with a ceramic (and
ceramic/metal) film manufactured by Huper Optik that also significantly reduces
infrared. Didn't want to have it applied to windows in plant rooms as the
company installing it can't say whether it'd effect the plants or not. Rather
not find out the hard way.

Here's a link to the products. I'm going with their Ceramic 60 and Sech
products.

Doug Bolton

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 16:14:20 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

Actually, the amount and specific wavelengths of light blocked by Low-E coatings depends on the
chemistry of the coating, it's thickness, and to a lesser degree, which surface it coated. I was
the technical manager of glass coatings for the company making the vast majority of low-E coating
precursors, so get this straight from the guys in the lab who developed the chemistry.

Basically, the coating is either an indium-tin oxide coating, or a doped tin oxide coating. The
thicker the coating, or the more electrically conductive it is (up to a point), the better the
insulation but worse the transmission.

The curve on this page (http://www.firstrays.com/plants_and_light.htm) shows that the UV is almost
totally blocked at 300nm for a 3000nm Fl-doped tin oxide coating on a single pane of glass, while
about 80% of the rest of the plant's usable spectrum gets through. Modern Low-E coatings are much
thicker, so just count on moving the curve a bit lower, while more-or-less retaining the shape.