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Our Technology
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Vacuum
coating technology is very different from non-vacuum based coating
technology such as dip-coating, spin-coating or ink-jet printing.
In vacuum coating, the coating is more uniform and the
thickness
can be precisely controlled down to a few nanometers to give the
desired optical properties. The technology that we use is
ion-assisted evaporative coating.
In evaporative coating, the coating materials is evaporated using an
electron beam. In conventional vacuum evaporation, a solid
material is transformed into vapour. The vapour then travels
and
lands on the substrate where it condenses and grows into a solid thin
film.
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With ion-assisted deposition, a growing evaporated film is bombarded
with a high energy ion beam. In addition, due to the momentum
transfer from the incoming ions to the condensing particles, the
mobility of the particles is increased thus resulting in a higher
packing density, and improved optical and mechanical properties.
Depending on the application, the optical coatings are usually done
with more than one material and the coating can be from one layer to
multi-layers exceeding 100. Each layer is typically in the
range
of tenths to hundredths of nanometers thick.
Since the vacuum deposition is basically a 'cold' process, low melting
point materials such as plastics can be coated using this technology.
The geometrical surface that can be coated can either be flat
or
3-dimensional. |
Application of Optical Thin Film Coating
Optical
thin film coating are used both for cosmetic and functional purposes.
Some cosmetic applications are for example in providing a
colored-metallic finishing to products as in handphone covers.
There
are a wide range of application for functional optical thin film
coatings. Applications are for example in providing a highly
reflective surface such as in mirrors, anti-reflective properties for
higher light transmission, scratch resistance, oxidation resistance for
metal surfaces or in selective light-wave filteration as in optical
filters. |
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