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Manufacturing Light Coatings supply coating solutions to our customers, from the design, specification and manufacture of coated components to providing custom coatings to customer supplied components. Our expertise in the technology and system level use of coatings ensure that the guidance provided at every step ensures the highest success for your product and end solution. ​ Light Coatings provide a range of services for a dynamic and flexible approach for thin film coatings. We specialise in small batch production with significant flexibility in terms of materials, coatings designs and substrate types to minimise setup time, costs and interruptions allowing us to focus on the value added activity of coating. We have internal capability for 3D printing tooling for use with our equipment to keep costs and lead times short and can also offer 3D printing to support our customers where this compliments the coating processes. ​ Precision Optical Coatings (UV - VIS - NIR - FIR) We can provide custom designed optical coatings for your application using industry standard simulation software to match a range of applications from Antireflection, edge filters, polarisers and other specialist filters. Coatings for Plastics Our low temperature process allows efficient coating of plastics for a range of applications, from optical to durable and wear performance. ​ ​ ​ Component Manufacturing We can provide a complete product from within our inhouse capabilities or within our established supply chain to meet requirements from large format polymer components to complete optical devices. SLA 3D Printing As part of our offering for coatings for plastics we can provide SLA printed components through our in house Formlabs printing capability, coating by our technicians and completed in a truly rapid timescale. Ready to take the next step to a coating solution? Contact Us

Precision Optical Coatings Antireflection Coatings Antireflection Coatings reduce the reflections present the interface between an optic and the air or other background medium. These can be single wavelength coatings for lasers or complex broad or multband coatings. Light Coatings can produce coatings from UV - FIR wavelengths. Metallic Mirrors A metallic mirror can be a 1st or 2nd surface coating of metal, typically Aluminium, SIlver or Gold to a produce a wide angle, high reflectivity surface. These coatings can be complemented with optical layers to improve reflectivity in select wavelengths or with layers to protect the metal from oxidation, abrasion and chemical degredation. Beam Splitters A beam splitter coating is used to split the incident light into 2 different paths, either for rejection purposes or the split a signal. These coating types typically work by; - Splitting the wavelengths of incident light - Splitting the light based on polarisation - Splitting the intensity with a partial mirror Dielectric Mirrors A dielectric mirror is a stack of high and low index optical materials which provide a very high reflection level. These coatings are generally give the highest reflectivity (>99.9% possible) but can be very thick and time consuming to produce compared to a metal mirror. Edge Filters Edge filters are typically versions of a high/low index stack and combined antireflection optimisations to provide a sharp transition from high reflection to high transmission. These can be in the form of long or short pass filters or other iterations to selectively filter incident light. Custom Optical Coatings Light Coatings regularly undertake custom coatings including transparent conductive oxides such as ITO, speciliased functional coatings such a thermochromics as well as a range of other optoelectronic coatings. Ready to take the next step to a coating solution? Contact Us

RESEARCH PROJECTS Our Current Focus Coatings for 3D Printed Plastics Feb, 2023 Low Temperature Diamond Like Coatings (DLC) July, 2023 Specialist IR Coatings June, 2022 Want to discuss our R&D projects? Contact Us

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Facilities Light Coatings have specialist facilities for the design, manufacture and analysis of a range of thin film coatings along with prototyping facilities to support rapid development at the systems level where required. Thin Film Coatings Our primary coating method is through Reactive Magnetron Sputtering of which we specialise in small batch production for prototyping and small volumes/components but with techniques which we can take to larger scale production within our own or other facilities. Our automated system can produce multilayer coatings with nm level precision and to date we have performed coatings exceeding 160 discrete layers in a single cycle. ​ We have a range of coating materials available including; - Oxides (SiO2, ZrO2, TiO2, VO2, Al2O3) - Nitrides (Si3N4, ZrN, TiN, Al3N4, CrN) - Metals (Al, Ag, Cu, Stainless Steel, Ni, Cr) - Others (DLC, Me:DLC, HMDSO, Carbides, ITO) ​ We also undertake materials development for new materials which we can conduct within our equipment very quickly but within a system which can be directly taken to industrialisation compared to a research system. ​ ISO 5 Clean Room As part of our ongoing quality assurance we have the Clean Environments, fully portable, inflatable class 5 clean room with HEPA filtration. This provides a dust free environment for the most demanding of customer applications. With the portable approach we gain in flexibility without the requirement and cost of a permanent clean room. Formlabs 3 3D Printer Light Coatings have recently brought in house SLA 3D printing capabilities to support not only our internal tooling and prototyping capability but to develop our ability to print and coat final products for customers with specialist requirements. We have stock formlabs resins available and can design and print components at a lead time much faster than an equivalent aluminium or metal component. Analysis Techniques To support our coating activities and consultancy offering we have a range of test and analsyis methods available including; - Spectrophotometers (UV - NIR and MIR - FIR) - Adhesion and Durability Testing to various standards - SEM Analysis - XRF - XRD Beyond this testing we have direct access to a significant range of test facilities through our various partners. Cleaning Facilities Utilising an ultrasonic cleaning process we ensure the cleanliness of customer substrates, essential prior to coating. Two separate cleaning stages ensure no cross contamination occurs. A dedicated drying system removes any remaining moisture. Ready to take the next step to a coating solution? Contact Us

3D Printing Formlabs 3 SLA printing of high performance Formlabs resins for superior surface quality components. The surface finish of SLA components ensure excellent aesthetics and accuracy for high performing prototyping and engineering components/prototypes. STFC Facilites Based at the STFC Daresbury site, and situated across from the campus technology HUB we have easy access of a wide range of 3D printers and printer technologies to support activities. These include metal printing as well as various polymer printing technologies. 10K Industrial Prototyping We carry stock of Formlabs 10K resin for high load, high temperature and excellent rigidity prototype and functional components. This glass filled polymer also lends itself to coating with our in house facilities. Formlabs Resins We can source many resins from the selection from formlabs and are happy to print in new polymers where this supports our additional activities and services. Ready to take the next step to a coating solution? Contact Us