Mirror coatings, unlike anti-reflective coatings, strive to reflect as much light as possible at a specified wavelength or wavelength range. Generally, metal-coated mirrors are optical reflectors based on a thin metal coating, a precision substrate with a thin deposit of metallic material. Metal mirrors are particularly important in infrared optics.
Alfa Chemistry provides a number of unique metal mirror coating choices to accommodate a wide range of optical applications. Typical metallic coatings are made up of thin silver, gold, or aluminum films. Copper, chromium, beryllium, and nickel/chromium alloys are less common. To provide protection, a protective silicon dioxide layer is frequently put on top of the metal coating. To improve the spectrum, dielectric materials are sometimes placed beneath the metal layer. Please contact us for additional details.
Applications of Metallic Mirror Coating
For healthcare devices, lighting components, sensing, and military applications, scanning equipment, and more, Alfa Chemistry offers a comprehensive selection of metallic mirror coatings with exceptional durability and environmental stability for military, medical, aerospace, and commercial applications. We offer a variety of coating material options for individual purposes. In the NIR and IR areas, for example, bare or protected gold has a high reflectivity; for visible applications, protected and enhanced aluminum is frequently utilized. UV and visible light applications frequently use UV and DUV enhanced aluminum.
| Metallic Mirror Coating | Reflection Specifications | Typical Energy Density Limit |
|---|
| Bare Gold | Ravg >94% (700~800 nm)
Ravg >97% (800~20000 nm)
Ravg >98% (2000~12000 nm) | |
| Protected Gold | Ravg >96% (700~2000 nm)
Ravg >96% (2000~10000 nm) | 0.8 J/cm2 @ 1064nm, 10ns |
| UV Enhanced Aluminum | Ravg >89% (250~45 nm)
Ravg >85% (250~700 nm) | 0.5 J/cm2 @ 355nm, 10ns |
| DUV Enhanced Aluminum | Ravg >88% (190~195 nm)
Ravg >85% (190~600 nm) | |
| Enhanced Aluminum | Ravg >95% (450~650 nm) | 0.2 J/cm2 @ 532nm, 10ns |
| Protected Aluminum | Ravg >85% (400~700 nm)
Ravg >90% (400~2000 nm) | 0.3 J/cm2 @ 532nm & 1064nm, 10ns |
Alfa Chemistry Customized Optical Coating
Using vacuum evaporation or sputtering processes, Alfa Chemistry creates protected or improved metallic optical coatings for a variety of optical applications. Glass, plastics, metals, polymer optics, fiber optic devices, and other optical materials can all be coated with metallic coatings. We have the ability to produce substrates with surface precision of less than /20, roughness of fewer than 5 Angstroms, and parallelism of less than 0.5 arc seconds.
Coatings can be customized to fit a range of customer requirements, including metal layer thickness. The coatings are made to reflect light from the first or second surface, as well as the angle of incidence, incident medium, and substrate. These coatings can be tailored for a certain wavelength or range of incidence angles, or suited for use as first or second surface mirrors. The coatings are designed to operate well in the UV to IR range. Alfa Chemistry can also design and build coatings for single or multiple laser lines, as well as broadband tunable laser sources for reflectors, output couplers, and other applications, thanks to our cutting-edge manufacturing facilities and skills.
Our metal optical coatings have been tested to international standards. We characterize and demonstrate the abrasion resistance and laser damage resistance of our coatings through our own testing laboratory or in collaboration with other laboratories. To assure accuracy, all results are obtained through several coating testing.
