Advanced Thin Films Wins Optical Coatings Challenge

Optical designers Darren Berns and Zach Gerig of Advanced Thin Films have achieved the best result for their coating design in the 2013 Optical Interference Coatings Conference Manufacturing Problem Contest.

The objective of the coatings challenge is to provide insight into the current design and manufacture of thin-film optical coatings.

Measurements were performed by two independent laboratories and a merit scale was used to calculate how closely the results compared with the target spectral profile. The measurements of the 14 competing teams were compared and Advanced Thin Films’ design tied for the best result with two other companies.

Advanced Thin Films engineers have won the 2013 OIC Manufacturing Challenge for their thin-film optical coating design. Courtesy of Advanced Thin Films.

The winning design was comprised of a two-sided filter profile consisting of 100 layers, a 7-µm-thick coating that was limited in layer count and layer thickness for ease in manufacturing.

Design is not a limiting factor, said Bob Hallock, vice president of operations. “The challenge is to produce a spectral result that closely matches the design. This is done by considering all of the possible process variations at the design stage and by continuously improving our process control in the manufacturing stage in order to generate the expected spectral response in every coating run.”

Advanced Thin Films, a unit of Idex Optics & Photonics, is a blend of ATFilms and Precision Photonics that manufactures high-power laser mirrors, optical assemblies and coatings.

For more information, visit: www.atf-ppc.com