Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC)

Diamond Like Coating

Diamond-like coatings are used across many industries in magnetic storage disks, car and engine parts, biomedical implants, and cutting and forming tools. They are a preferred choice in defense and security applications where environmental factors necessitate an anti-reflective coating with high durability and ability to withstand harsh conditions.

While inherent property concerns of a diamond-like coating, such as compressive stress, can be controlled with process input settings, the real Achilles heel of a DLC coating are Pinholes – common to systems that coat down. You see, when you have a coating chamber designed to coat down with the substrate at the bottom, “gravity” is working against you. All the residual dust particles and impurities are drawn to the bottom and get deposited over the substrate. The coating then gets applied over it resulting in pinholes.

EMF’s Diamond-Like Carbon Coating Chamber

EMF’s custom-designed DLC coating chamber deposits the carbon towards the top of the chamber which results in optical coatings with virtually zero pinholes. In addition, its Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PE-CVD) technique results in a superior quality product. Several other design and process enhancements eliminates the four most common customer issues associated with coatings – pinholes, uniformity, stress and adhesion.

What IR Substrates Can EMF Coat?

EMF’s proprietary Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PE-CVD) technique can coat all IR optics.

• DLC on Germanium (Ge)
• DLC on Silicon (Si)
• DLC on Zinc Selenide (ZnSe)
• DLC on  Zinc Sulfide (ZnS)
• DLC on Chalcogenides

EMF has successfully coated thousands of chalcogenide-based optics for some of the most demanding commercial and military applications.

To discuss the challenges you are facing coating your IR optics and how we may help solve them please call +1-800-456-7070 or email websales@emf-corp.com.

Download DLC/HEAR Info Sheet