Broad Band Monitoring: Fast and precise solutions
Alzenau, 02/2005
Although it is well-known, it has seen no great acceptance in the optical coating industry so far: wide or broad band optical monitoring (BBM). LEYBOLD OPTICS is a pioneer in the field of optical monitoring technology, and has therefore secured the rights of use of the BBM instrument developed at “Laser Zentrum Hannover“, Germany.
Broad band monitoring offers a fast and precise solution for a wide range of coating processes. Direct observation of the development of the spectral response of the layer system yields valuable information, which allows the operator online fine-tuning of delicate coating results. Furthermore, BBM is used in an intermittent, direct on-substrate monitoring mode, where one particular substrate position on a calotte is selected for monitoring. This direct monitoring mode works without any witness glasses or tooling factors, thus improving accuracy and consequently production output.
The working principle of BMM is based on fitting the spectral response of the growing layers to the pre-calculated result for each layer in a spectral range from 400 to 1.100 nm. In order to work precisely, BBM requires layer designs with sufficiently large amplitude variations during layer growth. BBM is available from LEYBOLD OPTICS as an add-on option for SYRUSpro or HELIOS coating systems.
About LEYBOLD OPTICS
As a prominent manufacturer of vacuum coating systems and developer of processes for the thin film technology, LEYBOLD OPTICS is represented in thirteen countries worldwide. The main focus of our processing technologies is on evaporation, sputtering and plasma-assisted coating processes for display technology, ophthalmics, precision optics, reflective and protective coatings, web coating, R&D, and special applications.
The basis of our success was laid in Germany 150 years ago by Ernst Leybold and Wilhelm Carl Heraeus. They addressed their pioneering spirit to the search for new manufacturing processes and founded our internationally recognized vacuum-technology company, which has set market standards ever since.
