Applied Multilayers Ltd has developed world leading technology for the production of high quality multilayer optical coatings. Closed Field reactive sputtering is set to become the dominant optical coating technology worldwide.
The process developed by Applied Multilayers uses magnetrons of opposite polarity which forms a closed magnetic field which contains and enhances the reactive plasma.
The targets in each case are simple metals driven by pulsed dc power. The resulting deposition energy is ideal for the growth of exceptional quality thin films. The new process is simple, scaleable and significantly less expensive than alternative techniques. The process is versatile and can be used to deposit metals, metal-oxides, metal-nitrides and even metal-carbides all with outstanding optical properties.
The thin films have low absorption, low stress and are super-smooth. The process is room temperature and compatible with coating plastics such as CR39 or polycarbonate. The process combines the quality associated with ion beam sputtering with the throughput of electron beam evaporation.
A range of drum-based batch equipment is offered with drum diameters varying from 25cm to 0.5m diameter with magnetrons up to 1m in length. Systems are available to meet the needs for R&D or small scale manufacturing through to industrial scale systems with removable substrate carriers for high throughput manufacturing. The technology can also be used in "in-line" or "roll to roll" formats.
Key Benefits
- Room temperature processing
- Dense, smooth and spectrally stable coatings
- Range of metals for reflection applications etc. Ag, Al, Au
- Wide range of reactively deposited materials available including:
(TiO2, SiO2, Nb2O5, Ta2O5, ZnO, Si3N4, GeC, ITO, etc)
- Nanometer layer thickness control using time only
- Removable vertical drum substrate carriers for high throughput
(up to 1m diameter)
- Shutters for target conditioning and interface control
- Linear unbalanced magnetrons up to 1.2m length
- High deposition rates
The systems from Applied Multilayers are used in a variety of optical coating applications.
Click on the small image (below right) to see the CFM850 format drum coater with a 6-magnetron configuration.
Applied Multilayers offers four different batch size, field proven vertical drum and linear magnetron configurations. Drum diameters are available up to 1 metre diameter to suit various applications and throughput requirements.
Please contact us for more information.
