As diverse as the applications are for thin film coating materials and chemicals, so is Materion’s range of capabilities and product offerings to serve them. Let us provide solutions for your thin film requirements through Materion's material technologies and products. The following are some brief descriptions.
Materion manufactures a complete line of evaporation and sputtering materials that can be used for simple and complex AR applications. Using hot-pressing, sintering, and reactive gas processing, we offer pellets, granules, shaped sources as well as a wide variety of target geometries. Metal oxides that are available include Al2O3, SiO, SiO2, Ta2O5, TiO2 and ZrO2. Mixed material compositions are also available, such as LaTiO3.
The chemistries of these materials are verified through utilizing an extensive materials characterization laboratory. Thin films of these materials have also been made and tested in real world applications. In each instance, the results have proven consistent, high quality antireflective films, able to support the most critical application requirements.
Combining our capabilities in wet chemical synthesis and vacuum melting, Materion is able to manufacture a variety of fluoride and sulfide compounds. These compounds are used to fabricate materials suitable for devices operating at infrared wavelengths. Thin films from materials such as ZnS, ThF4, MgF2 and YF3 are used to support the aerospace, military and avionics industry.
Materion has extensive capabilities to serve the market of large area coatings, including a rich foundation in processing Ag and high purity alloys. Through precision casting, machining and forging capabilities, we serve the architectural and automotive glass market with a wide range of planar and rotary sputtering target geometries, as well as evaporation materials.
Each product offering has been scaled to meet commercial volume requirements. Because Ag is a critical component of the product, the world glass market is using Materion’s coating materials to meet the needs of low emissivity glass applications. Materion produces precision materials, as well as offering full precious metals management solutions.
Materion’s chemical division was founded as an inorganic chemical company more than 45 years ago. Recognizing the need for specialty chemicals for a wide variety of applications, it began producing materials to meet specific customer requirements. Using high temperature, wet chemical preparations and reactive gas processes, coupled with custom particle sizing capabilities, that approach is still used today and serves a thriving global industry. With these capabilities Materion offers several thousand materials with different chemical compositions and physical properties. Beyond the standard list of offerings, Materion is able to offer custom and nonstoichiometric chemical compositions as well.
Metal sulfides such as CuS2, MoS2 and WS2 are manufactured and processed for a number of tribological coating applications. Materion’s expertise in inorganic synthesis also provides refractory coatings such as B6Si, HfB2, ZrB2 etc. A typical example of use of these refractory and tribological coatings is to serve the aviation and aerospace industries. Other applications include: Te based materials used as catalysts for specialty medical isotope devices; Fe + As compounds for superconductor applications, and more.
Materion also has offerings developed for thin film and multijunction solar technologies. Hot-pressing, machining, casting, forging and recycling are part of the processing set implemented to fabricate materials to serve a variety of photovoltaic technologies.
For the dynamic area of thin film solar, single element, binaries, ternaries and quaternaries are manufactured. Material examples would include Cu/Ga alloys, combinations of Cu + In + Ga + Se, S compounds, CdS and Cd containing alloys. These items are formed into sputtering targets of a variety of geometries, as well as forms suitable for evaporative processes.
Materion also offers you material solutions for high end, multijunction and concentrator photovoltaic devices which contain materials similar to those in other compound semiconductor devices. Typical material offerings include high purity Au and Ag metals and alloys. In addition to custom-fabricating these materials for the highly refined process techniques of the industry, Materion has capabilities in place for reclamation, adding value to your supply chain.
In summary, thin films provide great benefits across a range of applications. As those materials continue to evolve, so will the adaptations required to serve the coatings materials market. Materion is committed to being at the forefront of these technological innovations and maintain its position as our customers’ first choice - offering a comprehensive product line to meet industry needs.