Investigations on the angle-dependent dip coating technique (ADDC) for the production of optical filters

Angle-dependent dip coating (ADDC) is a modified dip coating technique that offers advantages for the production of optical interference filters. In contrast to conventional dip coating (DC), the substrate is withdrawn from the coating solution under an angle of inclination. Thereby, the two surfaces of the substrate are coated with individual film thicknesses. An experimental setup for ADDC has been built and the decisive process influences on coating thicknesses have been evaluated. In order to gain full control over the individual layer thicknesses, reaching from 20 nm to 160 nm, it is necessary to vary the following process parameters: lifting speed, angle of inclination and concentration of the dipping solution. The results of coating experiments prove the advantages of ADDC over DC. A first example aims at reducing the number of coating steps: an ADDC long pass filter produced in 10 coating steps reaches the same optical performance as a conventional DC filter made in 16 steps. A second example demonstrates the possibility to improve quality: a commercial DC beam splitter can be improved with respect to the flatness of transmission and reflection curves when being produced in 4 steps by ADDC instead of 8 steps by DC. Furthermore, ADDC offers the possibility to fabricate even narrow band pass filters, which are naturally difficult to obtain by conventional DC.