Picosun Group and Shincron Co., Ltd. have joined forces for development and commercialization of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) for optical coatings. ALD technology provides uniform and conformal coatings to the even most challenging structures and is therefore well suited for high-end optical applications.
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The R&D teams from both companies have worked together to tailor existing ALD processes optimizing them for the use in optical applications. In addition to standard ALD optical films, ALD magnesium fluoride (MgF2) has been researched and is now available for commercial use for the first time. So far, ALD MgF2 processes have been only presented in academic research by universities and science institutes. MgF2 is a desired material in optical applications due to its low refractive index at visible light and high transmittance in FUV optical region. It can be used as a single layer or as part of an optical stack combining low and high refractive index materials. It has also other features, such as barrier properties and high chemical stability, which bring big advantages in some applications.
The collaboration agreement was first signed in 2019 including the appointment of Shincron as Picosun’s sales representative and ALD product distributor in Japan. The collaboration was extended with Joint Development Agreement (JDA) in 2020 with the aim to develop novel and advanced ALD coatings for optical applications.
“We are very excited about the collaboration. The teamwork has been fruitful, and the results obtained now are excellent. We see optical coatings as one of the emerging ALD applications and believe in strong growth in this market”, says Jussi Rautee, CEO of Picosun.
“We are happy to add ALD technology to our offering. This way we can increase our services for our customers. We have set up a demo capability for ALD optical coatings and Japanese optical companies have shown high interest for this process”, says Masaya Narita, CEO of Shincron.