Products

We specialize in optical thin-film coatings, serving a wide range of industries such as the Medical, Aerospace, Defense, Optical Instrumentation, Inspection Equipment, Telecommunications, Imaging, Displays, Lighting & Scanning, Laser and Semiconductor fields. From research and development to high volume runs, GCL’s expertise covers custom design, custom tooling, evaluation and testing to final production.

Thin-Film COATINGS

Optical Coating Types

Mirror Coatings

Mirror Coatings are used to reflect the highest amount of light from the source. Different techniques can balance the amount of reflection with the cost of the coating to fulfill many needs or wants. Metallic and dielectric options available.

Filter Coatings

Filter Coatings are used to selectively transmit or reflect different colors or amounts of light. These are typically dielectric coatings that also offer high efficiencies.

Anti-Reflection Coatings

Anti-Reflection Coatings are used to reduce the amount of light reflected from the surface or surfaces of lenses or windows increasing the transmission of light through the optic.

Beam-Splitter Coatings

Beam-Splitter Coatings are used to split the light entering the optic for use in a parallel system. The coating is adjustable to vary the amount of split as needed by the optical system.

APPLICATIONS

Specific Optical Coatings

V-Coats

The V-coat series offers the best single wavelength performance of any anti-reflection coating. It’s design is relatively narrow, which limits the coatings effectiveness if a broader wavelength range or a wide angle of incidence is required. The coating can be applied and optimized for the same index range as the broadband anti-reflection coating. It will provide < 0.25% reflection at the center wavelength.

Broadband Anti-Reflection

This coating provides a glare free transmission by reducing the single surface reflection of the lens or window. The design offers a broad range of low reflectivity in the visible light spectrum. It performs from 400nm to 700nm, at 0 degrees angle of incidence. The design can be optimized for glass indices ranging from around 1.47 to 1.80, and wavelength ranges from 250nm to 3000nm. This coating type offers a maximum single surface reflection of <0.5% and an average reflection of approximately 0.25%.

Protected Silver

Protected silver offers a higher surface reflectivity than the enhanced aluminum coating. It provides an average reflection of approximately 97% in the visible wavelength range. This coating is a hybrid design optimized to provide increased environmental stability and maximum shelf life.

Neutral Density

These metallic coatings provide a constant amount of transmitted energy to pass through the optic or window. Our neutral density filters are spectrally neutral from about 400nm to 1200nm. On quartz substrates, we produce a variety of standard neutral density films with optical densities (OD) including, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. This coating can be custom designed to fit most transmission requirements. Due to the absorptive properties of the metallic materials used, we do not recommend this type of coating to be used with high power lasers.

Dielectric High Reflectors

High reflectors, or laser mirrors, are used when a very high amount of light is needed to be reflected. They typically reflect between 99.0% to 99.995% with scatter as low as 50ppm. The angle of incidence and the center wavelength can be optimized from 0 to 70 degrees, and between 193nm and 3000nm. This type of coating does not usually provide a wide range of performance. Our most commonly produced designs are at 248nm and 308nm, at 0 and 45 degrees incident angles, along with all other major laser lines.

Enhanced Aluminum

The enhanced aluminum design provides a better performance than protected aluminum coating. It averages about 94% reflection in the visible spectrum. The coating incorporates the use of a dielectric stack on the aluminum which provides a better resistance to abrasion than the raw metal.

MgF2

The least expensive type of anti-reflection coating we offer. Transmission is not as high as full broadband or V-coatings, but does offer a wide band of use for the cost. Performance depends on the substrate.

Protected Aluminum

This mirror coating offers solid performance. The design provides approximately an 88% average surface reflection in the visible spectrum. It has a silicon monoxide, SiO, overcoat to help provide a higher resilience to abrasion than bare aluminum.

Dichroic

Also known as color filters, these are custom designed to customer specifications. Usually coated with dielectric materials for maximum efficiency.

Dielectric Beam Splitters

Can be designed for a small to large wavelength range. This coating also offers the added advantages of minimal absorption, much higher resistance to abrasion. These coatings can be designed to be more accurate and to perform over a wider spectrum.

Metallic Beam Splitters

This coating offers a good performance over a moderate spectral region. When using metallic beamsplitters we do not recommend using high power lasers due to the absorption in the metallic film.

ENHANCEMENTS

Additional Product Offerings

Coatings on Plastic Substrates

This expands our abilities beyond thin films on glass and metal to include plastics for applications including LED lighting elements and more.

Coatings on Fiber Optics

Coatings on fiber optics give all the advantages as on standalone optics. We have experience designing and applying index matching anti-reflection coatings on terminated fibers.