Glass Reflections
Cambridge 7th to 9th September



Presenting Author:
Stuart Reid
<Stuart.Reid@uws.ac.uk>

article posted 21 Mar 2015

StuartReid

Stuart Reid is a Reader and Royal Society Industry Fellow at the University of the West of Scotland and is a member of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland. He obtained his PhD from the University of Glasgow in 2006, developing novel mirror technology for use in gravitational wave detectors - instruments designed to observe the most violent events in our Universe, such as black holes colliding. He has transferred aspects of these precision measurement techniques from astrophysics into the areas of biology and medicine. This includes co-leading a breakthrough in promoting bone growth from mesenchymal stem cells and developing optical filter technology for enhancing the world's fastest, low power CO2 sensors (from Scottish company, GSS Ltd) for capnography - specifically focusing on monitoring exhaled CO2 during anesthesia.






Protective infrared antireflection coating for chalcogenide glass

Des Gibson, Shigeng Song, Stuart Reid*
SUPA, Institute of Thin Films, Sensors & Imaging,
University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, PA1 2BE, UK

This paper describes optical, durability and environmental performance of a durable anti-reflection coating. The coating has been demonstrated on germanium, zinc selenide and chalcogenide infrared material.

The material is deposited using a novel pulsed DC magnetron sputtering technique, offering significant advantages over conventional evaporation processes for durable infrared coatings such as plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition. The sputtering process is "cold", making it suitable for use on low temperature infrared materials such as chalcogenide glass. Moreover, the drum format provides a more efficient loading for high throughput production.

The sputtering process provides a combination of high current densities with ion energies in the range ~30eV creating optimum thin film growth conditions. As a result the films are dense, spectrally stable, super-smooth and low stress. Films incorporate low hydrogen content resulting in minimal C-H absorption bands within critical infrared passbands such as 3 to 5um and 8 to 12um.

Environmental and durability levels are shown to be suitable for use in harsh external environments.