Bonding and Assembly Techniques

The assembly group at II-VI Aerospace & Defense has experience in opto-mechanical and various opto-electronic assemblies ranging from simple to complex configuration. Our team can build assemblies to print, refine a current optical design to provide a more cost effective / manufacturable solution or design an assembly based on a Statement of Work (SOW). Our Assembly team utilizes class 1,000 / class 10,000 clean room space and is geared toward defense based industries.

II-VI Aerospace & Defense is proficient in optical contacting, UV cure bonds, various adhesives and chemically activated bonds. Appropriate techniques will be utilized based on the application. Below are some examples of bonded assemblies II-VI Aerospace & Defense routinely provides:

Beamsplitter Cubes

Waveplates

Dissimilar Materials

Product Experience:

  • Opto/Mech Assemblies
  • Electro/Optical Sub
  • Window Assemblies
  • Null Lens Assemblies
  • Doublets, Triplets

 

  • Reflector Assemblies
  • LED Assemblies
  • Aspherical Lens Assemblies
  • Beam Combiners
  • Reticle Assemblies

 

  • Eye Piece Assemblies
  • Mirror Mount Wedge Assemblies
  • Rifle Scopes
  • Prism Assemblies
  • Binocular Assemblies

Thin Film Coating

II-VI Aerospace & Defense is a recognized leader in the application of visible and infrared thin film coatings for a wide variety of substrate materials. Our team of highly skilled optical thin film coating engineers design advanced coatings to meet customers’ specifications for next generation visible and infrared imaging systems, aircraft application and commercial products.

II-VI Aerospace & Defense' coatings have been proven to withstand a variety of hostile environmental conditions such as severe abrasion, including the windshield wiper test, salt-water submersion, rain erosion, missile exhaust, humidity, and salt fog. Most of these tests are performed in-house.

II-VI Aerospace & Defense' highly skilled optical thin film coating engineers design advanced coatings to meet our customers’ demanding specifications for next generation visible and infrared imaging systems, aircraft applications, and commercial products.

Coatings Offered

  • Durable Anti-Reflection (AR)
  • High-efficiency AR
  • Thorium-free AR
  • Conductive ITO
  • Diamond-like Hard Carbon (DLC)
  • Band-pass filters
  • Spectral broadband filters
  • Beam splitters

Specializing in:

  • Broadband, Dualband, & Partial Reflective Coatings
  • Highly Reflective >99.99%
  • Low Scatter Reflective Coatings >99.9% Reflectivity Average
  • DPSS Dichroic Coatings
  • Metallic Coatings
  • High Laser Damage Threshold

II-VI Aerospace & Defense Standard Coatings:

15501 Conductive <20 Ω/square visible and near IR Anti-Reflection Coating
16217 Sapphire near and midwave IR Anti-Reflection Coating
22100 Zinc Sulfide Durable Anti-Reflection Coating
22101 Zinc Sulfide Anti-Reflection Coating
22112 Zinc Sulfide long wave, near IR, and visible AR
24101 Zinc Selenide Anti-Reflection Coating
25101 AMTIR™ Anti-Reflection Coating
27107 Durable Hard Carbon Coating on IG-6
34206 Silicon Anti-Reflection Coating for midwave IR
34207 Silicon Hard Carbon Coating
40100 Germanium Anti-Reflection Coating
40101 Germanium Anti-Reflection Low Reflection Coating
40102 Germanium AR Broadband Coating
40107 Germanium Hard Carbon Coating

Whether a design calls for UV, Visible, NIR or IR wavelengths, II-VI Optical Systems can meet your most challenging coating specifications. Operating in a Clean Room environment, II-VI Optical Systems produces coatings which withstand high LDT requirements.

Coating Technologies

II-VI Aerospace & Defense has various coating technologies in the UV, Visible, NIR or IR wavelengths to achieve demanding customer specifications for laser quality optics. II-VI Aerospace & Defense’s coating engineering team has 100+ years of experience in the Optics field. All coating is conducted in a clean room environment. High LDT results are a key output of II-VI Aerospace & Defense’s coatings – and II-VI Aerospace & Defense’s commitment to this includes and in-house Laser Damage testing capability.

II-VI Aerospace & Defense utilizes Ebeam deposition in conjunction with double rotation planetaries to achieve uniformity within a batch, and process controls to ensure batch to batch repeatability. Multiple material sets are available to meet design requirements.
Starting with a base of the Ebeam Deposition framework, the additional Ion gun allows for a densification of the traditional Ebeam coatings – reducing wet/dry shift and enhancing durability characteristics.
II-VI Aerospace & Defense utilizes Veeco equipment to produce high-quality, low-scatter laser optics. IBS coating technology is highly repeatable from batch to batch, and the systems contain the highest level of automated deposition control. Through proprietary processing, II-VI Aerospace & Defense is able to achieve high LDT on these dense IBS coatings.
II-VI Aerospace & Defense deposits IR materials using Ebeam technology with a planetary rotation. The typical IR band II-VI Aerospace & Defense coats is 3-5 microns. II-VI Aerospace & Defense utilizes coating materials that allows II-VI Aerospace & Defense to meet specifications, with or without radioactive constituents.
II-VI Aerospace & Defense utilizes Ebeam technology with layer thickness control to evaporate metals to meet demanding specifications for multi-layer metal coatings. Proprietary metrology has been developed to ensure compliance of layer thickness specifications. Depending on the specification, II-VI Aerospace & Defense has developed tooling approaches to meet varying levels of pattern coating demands.
On occasions it is necessary to utilize Thorium Flouride in a coating.  While we strive to avoid its use,  we will use it if requested and/or approved by a customer for a special purpose.  Because we retain this capability for special circumstances,  we are also able to offer Thorium remediation of old optics containing such coatings.

II-VI A&D uses several different common glass substrates for film depositing:

  • Fused Silica
  • Crown Glass
  • Flint Glass
  • Filter Glass

Amongst the general substrates, II-VI A&D also works with several specialty materials:

  • Laser Gain Crystals (YAG, YLF)
  • Non-Linear Materials (LiNbO3)
  • Crystals (KTP)
  • Calcium Fluoride

Thoriated Coatings and remediation of optics containing Thorium Flouride are available on request here: Thorium Safety