Recent Advances in Optical Coatings

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is dedicated to highlighting the important advances and innovations in “Optical Coatings”. An optical coating is one or multiple thin films of material deposited on an optical component, such as a lens or mirror, altering the way in which the optical surface reflects and transmits light. The most common type of optical coating is an antireflection coating, which reduces unwanted reflections from surfaces and is used in a wide variety of applications including ophthalmic and photographic lenses. Another type is the high-reflector coating, which can be used to produce mirrors which reflect greater than 99.99% of the incident light. More complex optical coatings exhibit high reflection over some range of wavelengths, and anti-reflection over another range, allowing the production of dichroic thin film optical filters.

In such optical coatings the final characteristics and functions are critically determined by the quality of the individual film bulk and interface properties. Moreover, the design of optical coatings requires selection of materials based on knowledge of their optical, mechanical and thermal properties particularly the absorption and dispersion characteristics achieved for various deposition processes. Frequently, the selection of suitable materials results from compromises between these various properties as no single material will possess the ideal characteristics required to suit the wide variety of applications.

Application of optical coatings has provided substantial benefits into a wide variety of industries and optical systems, such as optical communications, energy control and solar coatings, photonic and sensor devices, high power lasers, displays, ophthalmics, and microscopy. Due to increasing industrial demands, optical coatings have gone through several generations of development, driving the need for lower optical loss, higher precision, increased production throughput and use over extended spectral regions. This has resulted in emerging use of novel materials and deposition technologies based on new sputter and chemical vapour deposition strategies, plasma assisted and atomic layer processes.

This Special Issue of Optical Coatings is intended to provide a forum for original research articles as well as critical reviews and perspectives on current advances and innovations in the field of optical coatings from both academia and industry. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, novel software and/or design techniques, new deposition processes including combined methods, multifunctional coatings (combining optical with other performance requirements such as durability or electrical conductivity), real­time
process
monitoring
and
control
of optical
coating
deposition methods, challenging optical coating requirements and solutions in areas, such as lighting, photonics, sensors, optical telecommunications, deployment in space, solar cells, and life sciences.

Prof. Dr. Desmond Gibson
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Coatings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Novel
 optical
 interference
 design
 software 
and 
design
 techniques
• Energetic 
processes
 (ion
 and
 plasma
 sources,
 densification
 and
 stress
 control)
• Multifunctional 
coatings (optical combined with other functions)
• Deposition, 
characterization,
 and
 applications 
of
 sculpted
 and 
textured 
films
• New
 deposition 
processes
 for
 optical
 coatings 
and 
combination
 processing
• New
 low
 cost 
processes
 for
 optical coatings
• Application 
of 
real­-time
 process
 monitoring 
and
 control
 of optical
 coating 
processes
• Novel
 coating
 materials
• Low loss optical coatings
• Coatings
 on
 polymers
 and 
special
 substrate
 materials
• Metrology
 of
 optical
 films 
(new
 instrumentation,
 in-­line
 approaches and developments to
 make
 characterization 
viable)
• Optical
 film
 characterization
• Applications 
in 
non-­traditional 
spectral wavelength regions
• Complex
 3­-D 
optical
 devices
• Optical
 coatings 
for
 energy
 control
 and
 solar 
power
• Optical 
coatings 
for 
laser 
applications; high power and/or short pulse duration control
• Optical
 coatings
 for 
aerospace 
and
 space applications
• Integrated
 photonic
 devices and sensors