AR AG AF Cover Glass Coatings Make 100% Excellent

What’s AR AG AF Cover Glass Coatings?

When you make a decision to customize cover glass lens from the glass OEM, sometimes it may refer to surface coatings including AR, AG and AF(Called 3A), which together as AR AG AF cover glass.

But who are they and what role they’re playing? An article to tell you.

AR AG AF Cover Glass Definition

AR, it means anti reflection. It’s a kind of surface coating on glass surface to increase light transmittance in different spectral bands.

Ultra clear glass substrate, the visible light transmittance is 91~92%. The each side of AR coating can increase light transmittance about 3-4%.

Calculate together with the cover glass lens, the light transmittance up to 99% at topmost.

AG, it means anti glare. It treated on cover glass surface to make the surface matt. The main purpose is to scatter the ambient light or sunlight but keep clarity in certain level.

So it can effectively avoid danger when the lights reflect from screen to your eyes especially in outdoor applications like vehicle screen.

Sometimes customer also use it for fine texture surface.

AF, it means anti fingerprint. When you touch the cover glass surface, you will find the fingerprint on it. The coating can greatly reduce the print and other dirts from easy removal.

Meanwhile, it can offer more slippy touch experience and optical clarity.

How To Identify AR AG AF Cover Glass?

When you view AR coated screen glass, you may curious about why different color tones reflect from glass surface?

Purple red: It’s the most commonly AR coating color. Usually the color can be seemed at single side double layer structure.

Light blue / green: It also a regular choice for more complicate multi layer coatings like double sides 4 layer or single side 4 layer coatings.

Natural(close transparent): It’s the target of high end AR coating.

With more precious coating design or double sides coating technologies, it let coatings’ reflection coloe tone compensate each other to meet color free result to avoid display color deviation.

To AG treated screen glass, it can be identified easily because for bare glass, it’s transparent but after AG treatment the surface become matt(as below picture).

When touch on glass surface you will feel a little fine hand feelings.

To AF coated cover lens, since it’s a kind of tranparent coatings that there are 3 ways can identify easily including:

1.When you touch the AF coated glass, you will find more slippy than bare glass.

2.When you drop the water on surface, you will find dislike bare glass the drop of water “sleep” on glass surface but the drop of water “stand” on it.

3.When you press on glass surface, you will find the fingerprint much lighter than bare glass.

How To Make AR AG AF Cover Glass Treatments?

AR(Anti reflection)

It’s a kind of electroplating on glass surface, usually refers to online AR coating and offline AR coating.

The online coated AR, it created during glass substrate production to spray chemicals. It’s single layer and good performance in anti scratch, can arrange thermal tempering.

The offline coated AR, it created by PVD and available in multi layers but relatively “fragile”.

AG(Anti glare)

It’s not belong to coating but surface treatment, there are 3 ways to create including acid etching, printing and lamination.

The most regular solution is acid etching.

To printing, it use frost ink screen print on cover glass surface and use tempering way to make unibody of the glass.

To lamination, it’s a kind of AG foil bonding on glass.

AF(Anti fingerprint)

There are 2 kinds of coatings including electroplating and spray.

To electroplating, the cost is higher(Use machine to heat up the AF material and attach on glass to create the layer) but more durable, better density, more even and better water angle.

To spray, it uses AF liquid by gun spray on glass surface and then bake, the equipment cost lower that this way also cheaper. The durability is weaker that usually for cheap applications.

What’s The Applications Of AR AG AF Cover Glass Combinations?

In AR AG AF cover glass, the coatings playing different important roles as:

To AR coating, it usually used in high light transmittance applications like outdoor screen, high clarity requirements and optical purpose.

But the offiline AR coating can be peeled off easily that AF coating can be add to protect it.

Meanwhile, the AF coating can offer premium glass quality to resist dirt and fingerprints that usually used in touch screen electronic device or clean concern devices.

To AG, treatment, it usually use in outdoor light scratter applications and premium hand feeling screens.

So you will find they maybe used seperately or 2 or all together in a piece of AR AG AF cover glass to play different roles.