Gold Black Deposition

Thanks to the specialized deposition and laser trimming stations at our gold black facility, we’re able to offer services tailored to your needs and specifications.

Gold black films, which are extremely porous (less than 0.3% of bulk gold density), have wide spectral-band absorptivity and low thermal mass. These coatings are particularly suitable for:

• Integration with MEMS thermal sensors to provide high absorption and rapid thermal response
• Any other application requiring extremely porous coatings

In addition to providing custom deposits on various substrates, we can integrate gold black coatings into MEMS and sensors such as microbolometer detectors. Our services can be tailored to the most exacting applications.

We’ve also developed a special laser micromachining process to singulate blackened infrared detector pixels. The process involves ablating the gold black coating with 3- to 12-µm-wide channels. Channel positioning is accurate to within 1µm and coating and pixel integrity is unaffected. 

Our extensive experience in optical coating design and manufacturing and our stable, repeatable processes allow us to repeat and adapt our processes to ensure highly effective and flexible custom services.

Fields of application vary widely, ranging from aerospace to security and defence, as well as any other application requiring an extremely porous coating.

Our black gold coatings have the following characteristics:

• Thickness: 3–70 µm
• Wavelength absorption range: NIR to THz (1.7–300 µm)
• Uniform deposition area (30x40 mm²)
• Optical Absorption > 95% for 25-µm-thick films at wavelengths from 0.2 to 40 μm
• Optical Absorption > 90% for 25-µm-thick films at wavelengths from 40 to 100 μm
• Optical Absorption > 35% for 70-µm-thick films at wavelengths up to 300 µm
• Compatible with environmental requirements for space and military applications (vibration, shock, and thermal cycling)

We invite you to contact us for more information.