Optical coating

Last updated November 09, 2024

Optically coated mirrors and lenses Coating-Mirror-Lens.jpg — Optically coated mirrors and lenses

An optical coating is one or more thin layers of material deposited on an optical component such as a lens, prism or mirror, which alters the way in which the optic reflects and transmits light. These coatings have become a key technology in the field of optics. One type of optical coating is an anti-reflective coating, which reduces unwanted reflections from surfaces, and is commonly used on spectacle and camera lenses. Another type is the high-reflector coating, which can be used to produce mirrors that reflect greater than 99.99% of the light that falls on them. More complex optical coatings exhibit high reflection over some range of wavelengths, and anti-reflection over another range, allowing the production of dichroic thin-film filters.

Types of coating

Reflectance vs. wavelength curves for aluminium (Al), silver (Ag), and gold (Au) metal mirrors at normal incidence Image-Metal-reflectance.png — Reflectance vs. wavelength curves for aluminium (Al), silver (Ag), and gold (Au) metal mirrors at normal incidence

The simplest optical coatings are thin layers of metals, such as aluminium, which are deposited on glass substrates to make mirror surfaces, a process known as silvering. The metal used determines the reflection characteristics of the mirror; aluminium is the cheapest and most common coating, and yields a reflectivity of around 88%-92% over the visible spectrum. More expensive is silver, which has a reflectivity of 95%-99% even into the far infrared, but suffers from decreasing reflectivity (<90%) in the blue and ultraviolet spectral regions. Most expensive is gold, which gives excellent (98%-99%) reflectivity throughout the infrared, but limited reflectivity at wavelengths shorter than 550 nm, resulting in the typical gold colour.

By controlling the thickness and density of metal coatings, it is possible to decrease the reflectivity and increase the transmission of the surface, resulting in a half-silvered mirror . These are sometimes used as "one-way mirrors".

The other major type of optical coating is the dielectric coating (i.e. using materials with a different refractive index to the substrate). These are constructed from thin layers of materials such as magnesium fluoride, calcium fluoride, and various metal oxides, which are deposited onto the optical substrate. By careful choice of the exact composition, thickness, and number of these layers, it is possible to tailor the reflectivity and transmitivity of the coating to produce almost any desired characteristic. Reflection coefficients of surfaces can be reduced to less than 0.2%, producing an antireflection (AR) coating. Conversely, the reflectivity can be increased to greater than 99.99%, producing a high-reflector (HR) coating. The level of reflectivity can also be tuned to any particular value, for instance to produce a mirror that reflects 90% and transmits 10% of the light that falls on it, over some range of wavelengths. Such mirrors are often used as beamsplitters, and as output couplers in lasers. Alternatively, the coating can be designed such that the mirror reflects light only in a narrow band of wavelengths, producing an optical filter.

The versatility of dielectric coatings leads to their use in many scientific optical instruments (such as lasers, optical microscopes, refracting telescopes, and interferometers) as well as consumer devices such as binoculars, spectacles, and photographic lenses.

Dielectric layers are sometimes applied over top of metal films, either to provide a protective layer (as in silicon dioxide over aluminium), or to enhance the reflectivity of the metal film.^[1] Metal and dielectric combinations are also used to make advanced coatings that cannot be made any other way. One example is the so-called "perfect mirror", which exhibits high (but not perfect) reflection, with unusually low sensitivity to wavelength, angle, and polarization.^[2]

Antireflection coatings

Antireflection coatings are used to reduce reflection from surfaces. Whenever a ray of light moves from one medium to another (such as when light enters a sheet of glass after travelling through air), some portion of the light is reflected from the surface (known as the interface) between the two media.

A number of different effects are used to reduce reflection. The simplest is to use a thin layer of material at the interface, with an index of refraction between those of the two media. The reflection is minimized when

n_{1}={\sqrt {n_{0}n_{S}}}

,

where $n_{1}$ is the index of the thin layer, and $n_{0}$ and $n_{S}$ are the indices of the two media. The optimum refractive indices for multiple coating layers at angles of incidence other than 0° is given by Moreno et al. (2005).^[3]

Such coatings can reduce the reflection for ordinary glass from about 4% per surface to around 2%. These were the first type of antireflection coating known, having been discovered by Lord Rayleigh in 1886. He found that old, slightly tarnished pieces of glass transmitted more light than new, clean pieces due to this effect.

Practical antireflection coatings rely on an intermediate layer not only for its direct reduction of reflection coefficient, but also use the interference effect of a thin layer. If the layer's thickness is controlled precisely such that it is exactly one-quarter of the wavelength of the light in the layer (a quarter-wave coating), the reflections from the front and back sides of the thin layer will destructively interfere and cancel each other.

Interference in a quarter-wave antireflection coating Optical-coating-2.svg — Interference in a quarter-wave antireflection coating

In practice, the performance of a simple one-layer interference coating is limited by the fact that the reflections only exactly cancel for one wavelength of light at one angle, and by difficulties finding suitable materials. For ordinary glass (n≈1.5), the optimum coating index is n≈1.23. Few useful substances have the required refractive index. Magnesium fluoride (MgF₂) is often used, since it is hard-wearing and can be easily applied to substrates using physical vapour deposition, even though its index is higher than desirable (n=1.38). With such coatings, reflection as low as 1% can be achieved on common glass, and better results can be obtained on higher index media.

Further reduction is possible by using multiple coating layers, designed such that reflections from the surfaces undergo maximum destructive interference. By using two or more layers, broadband antireflection coatings which cover the visible range (400-700 nm) with maximum reflectivities of less than 0.5% are commonly achievable. Reflection in narrower wavelength bands can be as low as 0.1%. Alternatively, a series of layers with small differences in refractive index can be used to create a broadband antireflective coating by means of a refractive index gradient.

High-reflection coatings

High-reflection (HR) coatings work the opposite way to antireflection coatings. The general idea is usually based on the periodic layer system composed from two materials, one with a high index, such as zinc sulfide (n=2.32) or titanium dioxide (n=2.4), and one with a low index, such as magnesium fluoride (n=1.38) or silicon dioxide (n=1.49). This periodic system significantly enhances the reflectivity of the surface in the certain wavelength range called band-stop, whose width is determined by the ratio of the two used indices only (for quarter-wave systems), while the maximum reflectivity increases up to almost 100% with a number of layers in the stack. The thicknesses of the layers are generally quarter-wave (then they yield to the broadest high reflection band in comparison to the non-quarter-wave systems composed from the same materials), this time designed such that reflected beams constructively interfere with one another to maximize reflection and minimize transmission. The best of these coatings built-up from deposited dielectric lossless materials on perfectly smooth surfaces can reach reflectivities greater than 99.999% (over a fairly narrow range of wavelengths). Common HR coatings can achieve 99.9% reflectivity over a broad wavelength range (tens of nanometers in the visible spectrum range).

As for AR coatings, HR coatings are affected by the incidence angle of the light. When used away from normal incidence, the reflective range shifts to shorter wavelengths, and becomes polarization dependent. This effect can be exploited to produce coatings that polarize a light beam.

By manipulating the exact thickness and composition of the layers in the reflective stack, the reflection characteristics can be tuned to a particular application, and may incorporate both high-reflective and anti-reflective wavelength regions. The coating can be designed as a long- or short-pass filter, a bandpass or notch filter, or a mirror with a specific reflectivity (useful in lasers). For example, the dichroic prism assembly used in some cameras requires two dielectric coatings, one long-wavelength pass filter reflecting light below 500 nm (to separate the blue component of the light), and one short-pass filter to reflect red light, above 600 nm wavelength. The remaining transmitted light is the green component.

Extreme ultraviolet coatings

In the EUV portion of the spectrum (wavelengths shorter than about 30 nm) nearly all materials absorb strongly, making it difficult to focus or otherwise manipulate light in this wavelength range. Telescopes such as TRACE or EIT that form images with EUV light use multilayer mirrors that are constructed of hundreds of alternating layers of a high-mass metal such as molybdenum or tungsten, and a low-mass spacer such as silicon, vacuum deposited onto a substrate such as glass. Each layer pair is designed to have a thickness equal to half the wavelength of light to be reflected. Constructive interference between scattered light from each layer causes the mirror to reflect EUV light of the desired wavelength as would a normal metal mirror in visible light. Using multilayer optics it is possible to reflect up to 70% of incident EUV light (at a particular wavelength chosen when the mirror is constructed).

Transparent conductive coatings

Transparent conductive coatings are used in applications where it is important that the coating conduct electricity or dissipate static charge. Conductive coatings are used to protect the aperture from electromagnetic interference, while dissipative coatings are used to prevent the build-up of static electricity. Transparent conductive coatings are also used extensively to provide electrodes in situations where light is required to pass, for example in flat panel display technologies and in many photoelectrochemical experiments. A common substance used in transparent conductive coatings is indium tin oxide (ITO). ITO is not very optically transparent, however. The layers must be thin to provide substantial transparency, particularly at the blue end of the spectrum. Using ITO, sheet resistances of 20 to 10,000 ohms per square can be achieved. An ITO coating may be combined with an antireflective coating to further improve transmittance. Other TCOs (Transparent Conductive Oxides) include AZO (Aluminium doped Zinc Oxide), which offers much better UV transmission than ITO. A special class of transparent conductive coatings applies to infrared films for theater-air military optics where IR transparent windows need to have (Radar) stealth (Stealth technology) properties. These are known as RAITs (Radar Attenuating / Infrared Transmitting) and include materials such as boron doped DLC (Diamond-like carbon)^{[ citation needed ]}.

Phase correction coatings

Beam path at the roof edge (cross-section); the P-coating layer is on both roof surfaces P-belag.png — Beam path at the roof edge (cross-section); the P-coating layer is on both roof surfaces

The multiple internal reflections in roof prisms cause a polarization-dependent phase-lag of the transmitted light, in a manner similar to a Fresnel rhomb. This must be suppressed by multilayer phase-correction coatings applied to one of the roof surfaces to avoid unwanted interference effects and a loss of contrast in the image. Dielectric phase-correction prism coatings are applied in a vacuum chamber with maybe 30 different superimposed vapor coating layers deposits, making it a complex production process.

In a roof prism without a phase-correcting coating, s-polarized and p-polarized light each acquire a different geometric phase as they pass through the upper prism. When the two polarized components are recombined, interference between the s-polarized and p-polarized light results in a different intensity distribution perpendicular to the roof edge as compared to that along the roof edge. This effect reduces contrast and resolution in the image perpendicular to the roof edge, producing an inferior image compared to that from a porro prism erecting system. This roof edge diffraction effect may also be seen as a diffraction spike perpendicular to the roof edge generated by bright points in the image. In technical optics, such a phase is also known as the Pancharatnam phase,^[4] and in quantum physics an equivalent phenomenon is known as the Berry phase.^[5]

This effect can be seen in the elongation of the Airy disk in the direction perpendicular to the crest of the roof as this is a diffraction from the discontinuity at the roof crest.

The unwanted interference effects are suppressed by vapour-depositing a special dielectric coating known as a phase-compensating coating on the roof surfaces of the roof prism. These phase-correction coating or P-coating on the roof surfaces was developed in 1988 by Adolf Weyrauch at Carl Zeiss ^[6] Other manufacturers followed soon, and since then phase-correction coatings are used across the board in medium and high-quality roof prism binoculars. This coating corrects for the difference in geometric phase between s- and p-polarized light so both have effectively the same phase shift, preventing image-degrading interference.^[7]

From a technical point of view, the phase-correction coating layer does not correct the actual phase shift, but rather the partial polarization of the light that results from total reflection. Such a correction can always only be made for a selected wavelength and for a specific angle of incidence; however, it is possible to approximately correct a roof prism for polychromatic light by superimposing several layers.^[8] In this way, since the 1990s, roof prism binoculars have also achieved resolution values that were previously only achievable with porro prisms.^[9] The presence of a phase-correction coating can be checked on unopened binoculars using two polarization filters.^[6]

Fano-resonant optical coatings

Fano-resonant optical coatings (FROCs) represent a new category of optical coatings.^[10] FROCs exhibit the photonic Fano resonance by coupling a broadband nanocavity, which serves as the continuum, with a narrowband Fabry–Perot nanocavity, representing the discrete state. The interference between these two resonances manifests as an asymmetric Fano-resonance line-shape. FROCs are considered a separate category of optical coatings because they enjoy optical properties that cannot be reproduced using other optical coatings. Mainly, semi-transparent FROCs act as a beam splitting filter that reflects and transmits the same color, a property that cannot be achieved with transmission filters, dielectric mirrors, or semi-transparent metals.

FROCs enjoy remarkable structural coloring properties, as they can produce colors across a wide color gamut with both high brightness and high purity.^[11] Moreover, the dependence of color on the angle of incident light can be controlled through the dielectric cavity material, making FROCs adaptable for applications requiring either angle-independent or angle-dependent coloring. This includes decorative purposes and anti-counterfeit measures.

FROCs were used as both monolithic spectrum splitters and selective solar absorbers, which makes them suitable for hybrid solar-thermal energy generation.^[10] They can be designed to reflect specific wavelength ranges, aligning with the energy band gap of photovoltaic cells, while absorbing the remaining solar spectrum. This enables higher photovoltaic efficiency at elevated optical concentrations by reducing the photovoltaic's cell temperature. The reduced temperature also increases the cell's lifetime. Additionally, their low infrared emissivity minimizes thermal losses, increasing the system's overall optothermal efficiency.^[10]

Sources

Hecht, Eugene. Chapter 9, Optics, 2nd ed. (1990), Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-11609-X.
I. Moreno, et al., "Thin-film spatial filters", Optics Letters, 30, 914–916 (2005), doi : 10.1364/OL.30.000914.
C. Clark, et al., "Two-color Mach 3 IR coating for TAMD systems", Proc. SPIE, vol. 4375, p. 307–314 (2001), doi : 10.1117/12.439189.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirror</span> Object that reflects an image

A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the image in an equal yet opposite angle from which the light shines upon it. This allows the viewer to see themselves or objects behind them, or even objects that are at an angle from them but out of their field of view, such as around a corner. Natural mirrors have existed since prehistoric times, such as the surface of water, but people have been manufacturing mirrors out of a variety of materials for thousands of years, like stone, metals, and glass. In modern mirrors, metals like silver or aluminium are often used due to their high reflectivity, applied as a thin coating on glass because of its naturally smooth and very hard surface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brewster's angle</span> Angle of incidence for which all reflected light will be polarized

Brewster's angle is an angle of incidence at which light with a particular polarization is perfectly transmitted through a transparent dielectric surface, with no reflection. When unpolarized light is incident at this angle, the light that is reflected from the surface is therefore perfectly polarized. The angle is named after the Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster (1781–1868).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interference filter</span> Wavelength-selective optical filter

An interference filter, dichroic filter, or thin-film filter is an optical filter that reflects some wavelengths (colors) of light and transmits others, with almost no absorption for all wavelengths of interest. An interference filter may be high-pass, low-pass, bandpass, or band-rejection. They are used in scientific applications, as well as in architectural and theatrical lighting.

Binoculars or field glasses are two refracting telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects. Most binoculars are sized to be held using both hands, although sizes vary widely from opera glasses to large pedestal-mounted military models.

$<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prism (optics)</span> Transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light$

An optical prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that are designed to refract light. At least one surface must be angled — elements with two parallel surfaces are not prisms. The most familiar type of optical prism is the triangular prism, which has a triangular base and rectangular sides. Not all optical prisms are geometric prisms, and not all geometric prisms would count as an optical prism. Prisms can be made from any material that is transparent to the wavelengths for which they are designed. Typical materials include glass, acrylic and fluorite.

Thin-film optics is the branch of optics that deals with very thin structured layers of different materials. In order to exhibit thin-film optics, the thickness of the layers of material must be similar to the coherence length; for visible light it is most often observed between 200 and 1000 nm of thickness. Layers at this scale can have remarkable reflective properties due to light wave interference and the difference in refractive index between the layers, the air, and the substrate. These effects alter the way the optic reflects and transmits light. This effect, known as thin-film interference, is observable in soap bubbles and oil slicks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optical filter</span> Filters which selectively transmit specific colors

An optical filter is a device that selectively transmits light of different wavelengths, usually implemented as a glass plane or plastic device in the optical path, which are either dyed in the bulk or have interference coatings. The optical properties of filters are completely described by their frequency response, which specifies how the magnitude and phase of each frequency component of an incoming signal is modified by the filter.

Ellipsometry is an optical technique for investigating the dielectric properties of thin films. Ellipsometry measures the change of polarization upon reflection or transmission and compares it to a model.

An antireflective, antiglare or anti-reflection (AR) coating is a type of optical coating applied to the surface of lenses, other optical elements, and photovoltaic cells to reduce reflection. In typical imaging systems, this improves the efficiency since less light is lost due to reflection. In complex systems such as cameras, binoculars, telescopes, and microscopes the reduction in reflections also improves the contrast of the image by elimination of stray light. This is especially important in planetary astronomy. In other applications, the primary benefit is the elimination of the reflection itself, such as a coating on eyeglass lenses that makes the eyes of the wearer more visible to others, or a coating to reduce the glint from a covert viewer's binoculars or telescopic sight.

Silvering is the chemical process of coating a non-conductive substrate such as glass with a reflective substance, to produce a mirror. While the metal is often silver, the term is used for the application of any reflective metal.

A polarizer or polariser is an optical filter that lets light waves of a specific polarization pass through while blocking light waves of other polarizations. It can filter a beam of light of undefined or mixed polarization into a beam of well-defined polarization, known as polarized light. Polarizers are used in many optical techniques and instruments. Polarizers find applications in photography and LCD technology. In photography, a polarizing filter can be used to filter out reflections.

A dielectric mirror, also known as a Bragg mirror, is a type of mirror composed of multiple thin layers of dielectric material, typically deposited on a substrate of glass or some other optical material. By careful choice of the type and thickness of the dielectric layers, one can design an optical coating with specified reflectivity at different wavelengths of light. Dielectric mirrors are also used to produce ultra-high reflectivity mirrors: values of 99.999% or better over a narrow range of wavelengths can be produced using special techniques. Alternatively, they can be made to reflect a broad spectrum of light, such as the entire visible range or the spectrum of the Ti-sapphire laser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roof prism</span>

A roof prism, also called a Dachkanten prism or Dach prism, is a reflective prism containing a section where two faces meet at a 90° angle, resembling the roof of a building and thus the name. Reflection from the two 90° faces returns an image that is flipped laterally across the axis where the faces meet.

A Schmidt–Pechan prism is a type of optical prism used to rotate an image by 180°. These prisms are commonly used in binoculars as an image erecting system. The Schmidt–Pechan prism makes use of a roof prism section. Binoculars designs using Schmidt–Pechan prisms can be constructed more compactly than ones using Porro or Uppendahl roof and Abbe–Koenig roof prisms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Distributed Bragg reflector</span> Structure used in waveguides

A distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) is a reflector used in waveguides, such as optical fibers. It is a structure formed from multiple layers of alternating materials with different refractive index, or by periodic variation of some characteristic of a dielectric waveguide, resulting in periodic variation in the effective refractive index in the guide. Each layer boundary causes a partial reflection and refraction of an optical wave. For waves whose vacuum wavelength is close to four times the optical thickness of the layers, the interaction between these beams generates constructive interference, and the layers act as a high-quality reflector. The range of wavelengths that are reflected is called the photonic stopband. Within this range of wavelengths, light is "forbidden" to propagate in the structure.

A chirped mirror is a dielectric mirror with chirped spaces—spaces of varying depth designed to reflect varying wavelengths of lights—between the dielectric layers (stack).

Thin-film interference is a natural phenomenon in which light waves reflected by the upper and lower boundaries of a thin film interfere with one another, increasing reflection at some wavelengths and decreasing it at others. When white light is incident on a thin film, this effect produces colorful reflections.

Fiber-optic filter is an optical fiber instrument used for wavelength selection, which can select desired wavelengths to pass and reject the others. It is Widely used in DWDM systems dynamic wavelength selection, DWDM signal separation, optical performance monitoring, field tunable optical noise filtering and optical amplifier noise suppression, etc. Optical multiplexers (couplers) makes different wavelength coupling into an optical fiber and different wavelength carries different information. At the receiving end, if you want to separate desired wavelengths from optical fiber, it is necessary to use optical filter.

A rugate filter, also known as a gradient-index filter, is an optical filter based on a dielectric mirror that selectively reflects specific wavelength ranges of light. This effect is achieved by a periodic, continuous change of the refractive index of the dielectric coating. The word "rugate" is derived from corrugated structures found in nature, which also selectively reflect certain wavelength ranges of light, for example the wings of the Morpho butterfly.

An Uppendahl prism is an erecting prism, i.e. a special reflection prism that is used to invert an image. The erecting system consists of three partial prisms made of optical glass with a high refractive index cemented together to form a symmetric assembly and is used in microscopy as well as in binoculars technology.

References

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↑ M.V. Berry: The Adiabatic Phase and Pancharatnam’s Phase for Polarized Light. In: Journal of Modern Optics. Band 34, Nr. 11, 1987, S. 1401–1407, doi:10.1080/09500348714551321
1 2 A. Weyrauch, B. Dörband: P-Coating: Improved imaging in binoculars through phase-corrected roof prisms. In: Deutsche Optikerzeitung. No. 4, 1988.
↑ "Why do the best roof-prism binoculars need a phase-correction coating?". 24 July 2006. Archived from the original on 2022-05-23. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
↑ Paul Maurer: Phase Compensation of Total Internal Reflection. In: Journal of the Optical Society of America. Band 56, Nr. 9, 1. September 1966, S. 1219–1221, doi:10.1364/JOSA.56.001219
↑ Konrad Seil: Progress in binocular design. In: SPIE Proceedings. Band 1533, 1991, S. 48–60, doi:10.1117/12.48843
1 2 3 ElKabbash, Mohamed, et al. "Fano-resonant ultrathin film optical coatings", Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 440–446, 2021, Nature Publishing Group UK London. doi : 10.1038/s41565-020-00841-9.
↑ ElKabbash, Mohamed, et al. "Fano resonant optical coatings platform for full gamut and high purity structural colors", Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, p. 3960, 2023, Nature Publishing Group UK London. doi : 10.1038/s41467-023-39602-2.