Telescope Mirror Coatings

The deflection and separation of light beams in different intensities, directions or wavelength ranges can also be controlled by thinfilm vaporization. Either a metallic or a dielectric coating is chosen, depending on requirements and application. The abovementioned advantages of dielectric reflection coatings play a decisive role here, too.

Unlike metallic splitter coatings, dielectric splitter coatings enable absorptionfree light conditions. Dielectric splitter coatings are used in various filters and particularly in laser technology and reference metrology.

Compared with conventional metallic reflection coatings, the advantages of dielectric reflection coatings are their climate resistance, mechanical stability and high reflection combined with relatively low absorption. These properties are crucially important for many optical applications involving extreme thermal and mechanical stress.

Metallic thinfilm systems are vaporized onto substrates to attain specific reflection and transmission values. Depending on the type of metal and the thickness of the layer, metallic splitter coatings are able to separate customerspecific wavelength areas.