Patent ID: 7743630

Claim:
A method of making float glass having a thin conductive electrode layer at a surface thereof, the method comprising: providing a glass batch including soda, lime, silica and antimony; causing molten glass from the batch to be provided on a top surface of a tin bath, causing antimony in the glass batch to diffuse downward in the molten glass toward the tin bath and into a tin oxide inclusive film at a surface where the molten glass meets the tin bath, the antimony changing electrical properties of the tin oxide inclusive film to make it more conductive, thereby causing a transparent conductive tin oxide inclusive film that is doped with antimony to be formed at the glass surface adjacent the tin bath forming a thin transparent conductive electrode layer as part of the glass; and wherein the antimony increases the number of electrons in the tin oxide inclusive film formed at the glass surface so as to result in the formation of a transparent conductive tin oxide inclusive film at the glass surface that was adjacent the tin bath.