Low Defect Coatings – Avoiding defects is always important in optical applications; cleanliness is at the heart of everything we do. However, for certain applications, it is even more important that the defect level is as low as possible.

Such applications include sensor lids, where the coated substrate is close to the sensor elements with pixel sizes down to the micron range. For laser coatings with high laser power, coating defects are the starting point of laser-induced damage to the coating. In many biomedical applications, any kinds of particles and contamination are unacceptable.

Optical coatings on lids for high performance digital image sensors require very low densities of small defect sizes. Broadband anti-reflective coatings with low residual reflections and spectrally neutral performance eliminate ghost effects. Materion Balzers Optics offers superior low defect coatings and components produced in the cleanroom area.