Wire grid polarizer with multi-layer silane conformal coating

A wire grid polarizer comprising:

• an array of nanometer-sized wires on a substrate;
• a silane coating on a surface of the wires and the substrate as a conformal coating, the silane coating comprising a silane coating having at least three layers, with silane in each layer chemically bonded to silane in an adjacent layer, the silane coating having at least three layers, having the structure:
• and the silane coating further comprises:
• where R1 is any chemical element or group excluding a bond to the wires, R4 comprises a hydrophobic group that is perfluorinated, X comprises a bond to the wires and r>10;
• and
• a maximum thickness of the silane coating divided by a minimum thickness of the silane coating is less than 10.

A wire grid polarizer comprising:

• an array of nanometer-sized wires on a substrate;
• a silane coating on a surface of the wires and the substrate as a conformal coating, the silane coating comprising a silane coating having at least three layers, with silane in each layer chemically bonded to silane in an adjacent layer, the silane coating having at least three layers, having the structure:
• where R1 is any chemical element or group excluding a bond to the wires, X comprises a bond to the wires, and R4 comprises a hydrophobic group that is perfluorinated;
• a water contact angle, of a water drop on a surface of the silane coating, is greater than 120° after heating the coated device at 350° C. for at least 80 hours;
• and
• a conformal coating of silicon dioxide, with a thickness of less than 30 nm, between the array of wires and the silane coating.