Capabilities · 03

Optical Coating

AR, HR, and DLC hard-carbon films — deposited, tested, and certified in-house.

Capability 03

Thin Films, Thick Consequences

An uncoated Ge surface reflects 36% of LWIR light; two surfaces waste more than half the signal. The coating is not a finishing touch — it is half the optic's performance and most of its field survival.

We deposit anti-reflection, high-reflection, and DLC hard-carbon films in-house by thermal and e-beam evaporation with ion assist, on every substrate we fabricate. Coating stacks are built per band, angle of incidence, polarization, and flux — then verified spectrophotometrically on witness samples from every run, across the whole band rather than just the center wavelength.

Durability is built in, not hoped for: adhesion (tape), moderate and severe abrasion, 24-hour humidity, and salt-fog exposure per MIL-spec test methods, matched to the environment class on your drawing. Laser-line coatings can ship with damage-threshold (LIDT) test data on request.

Rule of thumb for specifying: state the band, the average and maximum reflectance per surface, the AOI range, and the durability class. If the surface sees weather or cleaning, say so — it changes the stack. Full tables live in the Coating Data Center.

BBAR 8–12 µm on Ge — typical single-surface reflectance (representative)

Portfolio

The Stacks We Run

Anti-Reflection

V-coats (1064 nm, 10.6 µm; R < 0.25%/surface) and BBAR across SWIR, MWIR, LWIR (R_avg 0.5–0.75%/surface). Dual-band stacks for multispectral EO/IR.

AR Data →

High-Reflection

Protected gold (R>98%, 2–16 µm), silver, aluminum; dielectric laser-line stacks to R>99.5% with high LIDT; Max-R CO₂ mirrors on Si, Cu, Mo.

HR Data →

DLC

DLC Hard Carbon

The survivable front surface for Ge and Si — single-layer AR plus armor that tested to severe abrasion and salt-fog methods per drawing class. DLC outside, BBAR inside: >90% transmission on Ge.

DLC Data →

Protected gold — typical reflectance (representative)

Run Verification — Every Lot
Spectral	Witness-sample transmission/reflectance across full band
Adhesion	Tape test per MIL-spec method
Abrasion	Moderate or severe, per drawing environment class
Humidity / salt fog	24 h humidity; salt-fog on request
LIDT	Laser damage threshold test data on request (laser lines)
Documentation	Coating cert with curves ships with the lot — ISO 9001:2015 traceable

Band, Power, Environment — Send Those Three

We'll return the proposed coating, the expected curve, and the durability class. Usually within a day.

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