German coating specialist Laseroptik has doubled its ion beam sputtering (IBS) capacity in order to meet a growing demand for high precision sputtered coatings. The upgrade from two to four industrial IBS systems will allow the company to meet various customer-specified requirements such as low loss super mirrors, complex filter designs, or coatings on crystals. With a GDD measurement setup, Laseroptik now also offers chirped mirrors.
Furthermore IBS coatings have become an integral part of the Laseroptik Express service, which offers coatings and optics within 24h, 1-2 weeks or 3 weeks for special prototypes.
The company introduced IBS in 2007 as the fourth and most advanced coating technique it offers, alongside e-beam evaporation, ion-assisted deposition (IAD) and magnetron sputtering. The company's IBS coating plants are designed with a primary RF plasma source, which uses argon ions to sputter off targets made of common coating materials. In order to guarantee very dense, low stress and well-oxidised layers, a second RF plasma source emits oxygen ions directly onto the substrate surfaces.
