The Features and Applications of Sapphire Windows

Optical Windows are utilized to protect other components within an optical assembly, instrument, or laser by acting as view ports. These windows are required in some applications to survive extreme weather conditions while also providing high levels of performance and dependability. These windows are the best material for demanding mechanical, chemical, and optical applications due to its unique features.

Features

Sapphire optics is optically perfect, with no obvious flaws such as bubbles, blocks, or twins. Synthetic sapphire windows have extraordinary qualities such as high hardness, strength, scratch resistance, high temperature resistance, chemical endurance, and wide transmission bandwidths.

These windows have a number of unique characteristics that make them an excellent choice for these applications. Synthetic sapphire is a hard material, which is a single crystal form of Al2O3 (9 Mohs hardness).

Sapphire windows may be created significantly thinner than other optical windows due to their structural strength.

Sapphire windows are ideal for high-power applications because of their strong thermal stability and thermal conductivity. A sapphire window loses less light than other conventional optical windows. It can sustain far higher temperatures without degrading than most optical windows.

When exposed to UV radiation, sapphire windows will not darken or lose their brilliancy. Due to sapphire’s high dielectric constant, sapphire windows are exceptionally robust and resistant to acid attack. It can also be made much thinner in comparison to other optical windows.

Sapphire windows transmit light in a wide range of wavelengths, from UV to Mid-IR (0.15–5.5m). These windows are typically required to operate under harsh operating conditions, so a hard AR coating is required to withstand harsh environmental conditions and improve scratch resistance.

Applications

Due to its durability and strength, these windows are typically used to protect delicate components. It is suitable for many kinds of IR sensors such as human detectors, fire detectors and so on.

These windows are popularly used in the LED industry and all world optical grade sapphire crystals primarily used in the LED markets. These windows are widely used in barcode scanners, too.

These windows are the best cooling contact material for the aesthetic industry. Some of the popular manufacturers in aesthetic industry such as Candela & Syneron, Lumenis, DEKA, and Alma Lasers choose sapphire windows as the main contacting material for their aesthetic machines.

Some of the leading manufacturers in the industry offer a range of UV & IR grade sapphire windows with low scattering and birefringence. As sapphire has a high refractive index, sapphire windows usually require an anti reflection coating for adequate transmission in particular region and hence, most manufacturers provide a range of coating options as per the requirement.