The usefulness of mirrors is so mu starting from the use of our household mirror to other optical applications. This piece of glass or plastic is coated with various coating agents to get your desired thickness or thinness which in turn determines the reflectivity and the transmittance. Mirrors reflect light and electromagnetic radiation, thereby allowing us to manipulate or divert light depending on the application. Just as lenses can magnify, focus or collimate a light beam, mirrors can perform these functions in a variety of applications. When using Mirror, it works on the principle of reflection and the law of reflection, it reflects light at an angle that is equal to the angle of incidence. The surface of a mirror is optically smooth and polished which makes their surface variations microscopic, it will reflect light. In contrast, a smooth mirror surface reflects light in a secular manner, which makes it look shiny in contrast to a diffused surface in turn making the object appears sharper but for our regular objects around us also reflects light, but in a diffused manner since they are optically rough. A Mirror has a glass plate that is coated with a silver or aluminum film or any other metallic coating as the case may be. The glass merely protects the thin metal film and has no other role in the mirror’s reflection. Silver films are used because silver not only has excellent reflection properties but exhibits about 95% reflectivity in the visible light spectrum. In the advanced application of mirrors, the contemporary silver or aluminum coating will fall short as a better and advanced coating like the dielectric coating is recommended. The dielectric coating has become one of the most popular and widely acceptable in most industrial applications, commercial and other sectors. For instance, with the silver mirror coating you have 95% reflectivity to the light spectrum but to get optimal reflectivity which should be up to 99.9% you need to apply the dielectric Mirror Coating. Dielectric coatings rely on interference of light to alter the reflection properties of the substrate.
Application Of Dielectric Mirror Coating Lenses
Laser Mirror
Dielectric mirror coating lenses have an efficient reflector optimized for a narrow wavelength range which makes their reflectivity to be above 99%, from 0° to 45° angle of incidence, for products optics polarization. Their coatings are very durable, making them easier to clean repeatedly and more resistant to laser damage. In laser applications, the dielectric mirror is simply the best shot to go for.
Dichroic Mirror
Dichroic mirror is also known as double band mirror, dual-wavelength mirror or dichroic reflector is a mirror with significantly different reflection or transmission properties at two different wavelengths which make two wavelength regions of some often not so large width. The specifications often refer to frequently used laser lines, so that dichroic mirrors are often belonging to the category of laser line optics. The dichroic mirrors are applied in areas in reflecting ultraviolet light and Infrared lights.
Hot Mirror
You can talk about dichroic mirrors without mentioning the hot Mirror. A hot mirror is a specialized dielectric mirror, that is used to protect optical systems by reflecting infrared light into the light source while allowing visible light to pass through the system. Beam spliter is an optical colorado and you can add some to your cart at Alpine research optics.
Cold Mirror
The cold mirror is a dielectric mirror, that reflects the visible light spectrum while transmitting infrared wavelengths. Cold mirrors are heat-transmitting mirrors that are designed to work as long-pass filters by reflecting visible wavelengths at 45° angle of incidence while transmitting near-infrared wavelengths.
