NDC's Precision Optical Coating Facility Manufactures Filters for its Gauges and Analyzers

Founded in 1981, NDC's optics group has been designing and manufacturing NDC's NIR (near infrared) filters for over 30 years.

Applied to the highest quality substrates using the latest manufacturing techniques, NDC's coated filters are used in some of the most demanding applications, enabling our instruments to achieve measurement performance to a standard which would be impossible without the transmission properties and stability which these precision filters deliver.

This translates into tangible benefits for our customers, in terms of

  • measurement accuracy and reproducibility - vital when multiple gauges are installed within one organization
  • lowest cost of ownership - since the unique optical design of our gauges, and their unrivalled long-term stability, obviates the need for any routine maintenance or recalibration
  • rapid response - to our customers' new and developing needs through our ability to deliver fast turnaround on filters and  prototyping requirements

Operating with an ISO 9001 Quality framework, NDC's optics facility has the skills and equipment to manufacture the interference filters used in our Series 710e On-Line Gauges, InfraLab At-Line Analyzers and the 710S IR Sensors used in our web process scanning measurement and control systems, to the closest tolerances.

 

NDC Filter Wheel

NDC Optics Production Facility

To produce the stable multi-layer coatings required for the NIR filters in our on-line and at-line instruments, our optics facility employs the following production methods:

 

  • Vacuum Deposition Coating: with both thermal and electron beam evaporation techniques with automatic deposition rate control to produce highly stable yet complex multi-layer coatings

 

  • Sputter Coating: which employs high rate pulsed DC sputtering form a high-purity silicon target, which, when mixed with accurately dosed process gases, creates the filter properties needed for some of our most challenging applications