Umicore opens new era in IR moulded optics by opening the first high volume facility

摘要

Umicore IR Glass has developed an industrial process to manufacture low cost chalcogenide glasses with well controlled properties. These materials called GASIR® 1 and GASIR® 2 are transparent in the 3-5 and 8-12 μm atmospheric windows allowing a great range of applications in thermal imaging. In the past two years, several optics based on Germanium existing optics (60 mm and 100 mm) have been redesigned for GASIR® glass and are now produced as standards in medium volume series. This year Umicore is passing another step in the production of infrared moulded optics by opening the first high volume factory entirely dedicated to GASIR® optics for driving vision enhancement (DVE). This new facility will have a capacity of several tens of thousands of optics per year. In this article, the first results of performance of the corresponding optics will also be presented.