Many times, the best quality anti-reflective coatings that are uniform, strong enough to survive environmental difficulties, and durable enough for commercial, industrial, medical, and military infrared applications are needed. Alfa Chemistry offers a variety of near and far infrared antireflective coatings and works closely with each customer to customize the coatings for their unique application requirements.
We provide a range of extremely effective broadband, narrowband, and dual-band antireflective optical coatings for our infrared coatings for infrared (IR) substrates. IR anti-reflective coatings are employed to boost a component's transmitted luminous flux, enhancing the performance of the optics as a whole. Please get in touch with us to talk about how we can assist you get the best outcomes for your project if you have any unique needs.
IR Substrates
Alfa Chemistry can best serve the diverse demands of our clients by offering coatings on a variety of substrates. For client IR applications, we vacuum deposit antireflective coatings onto substrates that the customer provides or onto substrates that are in stock. These NIR and FIR antireflective coatings may be made at incidence angles as low as 0° or as high as off-normal, and they can also be tailored to certain wavelength bands.
We provide a variety of IR substrate types and are highly skilled in coatings made of glass, metal, polymers, and crystals, including:
- Sulfide
- Sapphire
- Beryllium
- Stainless steel
- Germanium
- Silicon
- Zinc selenide
- Gallium arsenide
- Bare nickel-plated aluminum
IR Coating Types
Alfa Chemistry can provide precise customer requirements for high-quality anti-reflective coatings on surfaces. Standard specifications for adhesion, abrasion resistance, temperature, and humidity have been evaluated on permeability enhancement coatings for IR substrates. Alcohol, acetone, or gentle soap solutions can be used to clean these coatings.
Multilayer AR IR Coating
We offer multiple layers of highly effective multilayer broadband coatings for the 3-5µm, 5-8µm, or 8-12µm bands, commonly referred to as atmospheric windows. Their peak transmittance can be over 95% and over 90% at 2 to 5µm. Additionally offered are bespoke solutions.
Monolayer AR IR Coating
We offer broadband IR-area transmission enhancement films that can be optimized for specific wavelength bands. Monolayer films are available in the 0.9 to 20µm band. Monolayer coatings are restrictive and therefore cost-effective compared to multilayer coatings. Monolayers are not broadband, but they are very effective when used at specific wavelengths. Peak transmittance can be over 95% at the desired wavelength. Additionally offered are bespoke solutions.
Fig 1. Mechanical durability of the antireflective multilayer nanostructured (AR-ML-NS) surface tested by crockmeter. (Rombaut J, et al. 2021)
Extensive In-House Testing
All coating runs must undergo thorough testing due to Alfa Chemistry's strict quality control and monitoring procedures. Our highly qualified personnel thoroughly inspect each coating in our cutting-edge metrology lab to make sure it satisfies our high requirements. We are able to test to customer requirements, whether it is basic adhesion or wear testing for commercial applications or to ensure that the rigorous testing of coatings meets military specifications. We are equipped with cutting-edge spectrophotometers, environmental chambers, and internal laboratories.
Reference
- Rombaut J, et al. (2021). "Antireflective Multilayer Surface with Self-Cleaning Subwavelength Structures." ACS Photonics. 8(3): 894–900.