SCHOTT has opened a new optical coatings plant at its production facility in Duryea, Pennsylvania. The new facility is equipped with chambers for highly reflective (HR) and anti-reflective (AR) coatings of components and filters with diameter of 18".
The facility offers optical coatings for the near infrared (NIR) and visible spectrum. SCHOTT had spent $2 million for the expansion of the optical coating facility for the US defense industry. The 2,000-square-foot facility comprises coating chambers of various sizes in order to fulfill the cost, production volume and performance needs of the customers.
The optical coating line uses e-beam and ion-assisted e-beam evaporation processes to coat the components. These components fulfill the environmental and reflection criteria of the military, American National Standards Institute and International Organization for Standardization.
The establishment of the optical coating facility allows customers to buy and ship the polished parts to a third party coating company, thus saving significant time. The company also has optical coating facilities in Malaysia and Switzerland. The Yverdon facility in Switzerland is equipped with SCHOTT’s latest magnetron sputtering equipment to produce ultra performance notch and band-pass filters.
SCHOTT’s Duryea production facility, which was established in 1969, produces finished parts and optical glass for a wide range of purposes such as Zerodur for space applications, active laser glasses for laser range finders and high-energy lasers, and contrast improvement filters for aircraft displays.