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.