Optics

Materion expands astronomical capabilities with large optics coating facility

Nov. 14, 2012

Westford, MA--Materion is completing an 18-month project to significantly enhance its capability to manufacture and test extremely large optical interference filters and other complex optical coatings.

Conard Holton

Westford, MA--Materion (NYSE:MTRN; Mayfield Heights, OH) is completing an 18-month project to significantly enhance its capability to manufacture and test extremely large optical interference filters and other complex optical coatings. The Large Optics Coating Facility, part of Materion's Barr Precision Optics & Thin Film Coatings division, will be positioned to produce high performance bandpass filters in much larger sizes than are currently available.

The enhanced capability will allow Materion to meet the requirements of the astronomical community for several large ground-based telescopes in development. It will also support very high performance space programs, worldwide observatories and space hardware contractors, as well as utilize Materion's optical grade beryllium mirror material.

Delivery of the custom-designed and fabricated system is scheduled for December with operation commissioned for the first quarter of 2013. The facility will include a high-vacuum deposition system, a metrology set to test large coated optical elements and a precision wash station to clean large optical substrates. The installation of the new equipment in a specially built clean room will allow the precise deposition and testing of complex interference filters consisting of a few to well over 100 layers on substrates as large as 1.4 meters diameter.

About the Author

Conard Holton | Editor at Large

Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.