G-S Plastic Optics Installs Coating System

As part of its ongoing expansion, G-S Plastic Optics of Rochester, N.Y., has installed a precision optical coating system built by Vacuum Process Technology Inc. to provide vacuum-deposited coatings on polymer substrates such as PMMA (polymethyl-methacrylate), styrene, polycarbonate, Zeonex, Zeonor, and Topas. The automated Citation ITM precision optical box coater features e-beam and resistive evaporation with plasma ion-assist to form coatings that meet the thin-film requirements of polymer optics. Processes will include protected and enhanced gold, protected and enhanced aluminum, protected silver and antireflection coatings such as single layers, v-coats and multilayers for broadband antireflection performance. The G-S Plastics facility also features in-house metrology, including reflection and transmission measurement capability on Perkin-Elmer Lambda 650 and Lambda 10 UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometers, and other film-characterization resources.