Apr 30 2013
Rubicon Technology, Inc., a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products to the LED, semiconductor, and optical markets, today announced that Dr. Jonathan Levine, Director of Technical Business Development, will be speaking about the “Synthesis and characterization of large optical-grade sapphire windows produced from a horizontal growth process” on Wednesday, May 1 at SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing 2013 in Baltimore, MD.
In addition, Rubicon will showcase its line of optical products for use in defense and aerospace, instrumentation and analytical processing, sensors and detectors, semiconductor process equipment, and medical and laser applications at the SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing 2013 exhibition from April 30 through May 2 at the Baltimore Convention Center in booth #920.
Until now, existing methods used to produce optical-grade sapphire windows haven’t met demands for thickness and size in certain military and other applications. Rubicon’s new technological platform is capable of growing panels of much greater thickness. Dr. Levine will discuss Rubicon’s research into a new horizontal growth process to produce monolithic sapphire sheets large enough for use in next generation optical windows for military and civilian applications.
“As sensor technology and applications have evolved, the size requirements for sapphire sensor windows have grown substantially,” said Raja M. Parvez, President and CEO, Rubicon Technology. “With our strong history in scaling sapphire crystal growth and commercial scale production processes, we have successfully produced very large sapphire blanks using a highly modified horizontal directional solidification process. Dr. Levine will share information about important advances in large sapphire windows with the SPIE community at the conference.”
Sapphire is a desirable material for high-performance applications due to its optical transparency, physical strength, resistance to abrasion and corrosion, temperature durability, chemical inertness, and bio-compatibility. As a result, it is ideally suited for extreme environments where material durability is just as important as optical clarity.
Rubicon will have a number of optical sapphire products of different sizes and orientations on display at SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing 2013 along with a wide range of sapphire products including sapphire cores, ingots, windows, domes and blanks. Rubicon will also be displaying large diameter wafers ranging in size from 4 to 6 and 8 inches.