Dielectric mirror

roundgoldbroadband

Gold (Au) Mirrors are universal and economic broadband and broad angle metallic mirrors best suitable for visual, low & medium power applications. Protected and bare gold options available. Gold (Au) mirror is optical component coated with metallic gold coating (sometimes also – protection coating) with very broad reflection wavelength range, but lower reflectivity value when comparing to dielectric coated BBHR mirrors. Furthermore, gold coating reflects broad range of angles quite well, making this optical mirror even more universal. Although Gold (Au) metallic thin film coating has quite good reflectivity of an average of about 96% (with up to 99% at some points), throughout infrared 725-20 000 nm range, but reflection starts to drop at around 600 nm and drops drastically at about 500 nm. How Gold (Au) Mirrors are made? Gold (Au) mirrors manufacturing process starts with preparation optical substrates (polishing, inspecting) and coating them with specific thickness gold metallic coating. Sometimes protection layer is deposited on the top of thin film to improve resistance to physical and environmental. How to handle unprotected gold coated optics? Unprotected gold can be very easily damaged physically, but it does not oxidize. Alien Photonics suggest dry air cleaning, because physical methods might damage the coating. Furthermore, even small particles in non-clean environments can contact with coating, thus we also recommend handling unprotected (bare) gold mirrors in clean-room environments if possible. Fingerprints will also damage the coating, thus protective gloves or fingertips can help to prevent that.