Coating technology

KYOCERA SOC Corporation has worked to improve laser damage registance of laser optics for more than 30 years since it started to develop high power laser mirrors for inertial confinement fusion in early 1980s. In 1990s, it began to develop low-loss mirrors with ion-beam sputtering deposition technique, then it is still focused on simultaneous pursuit of high laser damage resistance and low-loss feature nowadays. KYOCERA SOC Corporation coating technology covers a broad range of wavelengths from VUV to FIR, using more than 20 kinds of deposition materials. Pursuant to the customer's target specification, KYOCERA SOC Corporation chooses the most appropriate method of deposition from vacuum evaporation, ion-assisted, plasma-ion assisted and ion-beam sputtering deposition. In its long history, KYOCERA SOC Corporation has accumulated a variety of experience in laser industory. We think such our experiences help your laser system.

Low-loss coating

Since low-loss mirrors by IBSD (Ion-Beam Sputtering Deposition) represent reflectivity of 99.99 to 99.999% or more depending upon wavelength, which a spectrophotometer is not able to evaluate accurately, KYOCERA SOC Corporation makes a measurement of reflectivity through CRDS (Cavity-Ring-Down Spectroscopy) . Although various laser light sources are necessary to conduct CRDS measurement, SOC, as a laser oscillator manufacturer, is able to provide a wide variety of light sources or to try to fabricate it through OPO if in case that a specific wavelength laser is not on hand. The coating strength resides not only in low-loss mirrors but also in AR coating which has been achieved R<0.001% for a single wavelength, R<0.003%@780-830nm for broader bandwidth.

High laser-damage-resistant coating

Although laser durability of optical thin-film depends on materials and deposition conditions, a continual readjustment of such conditions in accordance with aging deterioration of deposition material or equipment is also important in order to achieve high reliability. KYOCERA SOC Corporation installed both Nd:YAG and excimer laser damage testing systems that regularly applied to manufactured laser mirrors. In case of showing damage threshold downward tendency, structure or composition analysis is conducted on deposition materials and deposition conditions are readjusted accordingly. Deposition stress or durability is also evaluated in this readjustment process, renewed conditions are not applied to actual production until every factor has satisfied to each prescribed value. KYOCERA SOC Corporation does not spare any cost and effort for really competitive coating technologies.

Technical information

Coating technology