Nanostructured Surfaces: An Alternative to Thin-Film Antireflection Coatings

Nanostructured antireflective surfaces are a promising alternative to thin-film antireflective coatings for high-power laser applications. Rather than depositing coating material onto the surface of an optical component, materials are etched into optics through a process known as reactive ion etching. These subwavelength structures offer high transmission with angle insensitivity, a broad bandwidth, and high laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDTs).

Also, they are highly tunable for specific application requirements. By adjusting etch time and other manufacturing parameters, specifications — including wavelength, angle of incidence, and LIDT — can be carefully tuned.

Rebecca Silver and Luigi Verdoni discuss the advantages and disadvantages of nanostructured antireflective surfaces, how specifications can be tuned, and what applications are best served by this technology.

About Rebecca Silver
Rebecca Silver is an optical engineer at Edmund Optics in the Barrington, N.J. R&D lab. Her current focus is on the development of new technologies such as nanostructured antireflective surfaces. Previous experience as a product support engineer provides her with invaluable context for what matters to optical systems integrators. Silver has a bachelor's degree in optical engineering from the University of Rochester Institute of Optics.

About Luigi Verdoni
Luigi Verdoni, Ph.D., is an R&D project manager at Edmund Optics in the Barrington, N.J. R&D lab. He guides the development of new technologies such as nanostructured antireflective surfaces. He began his optics career two decades ago, and previous research into submicron patterning gives him valuable insight into the fabrication of structured surfaces. He holds a bachelor's degree in optical engineering from the University of Rochester Institute of Optics, a Master's of Science in materials science and engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Tulane University.