Self-Assembled Nanoporous Anti-Reflective Coatings for Image Intensifier Tubes

The proposed Phase II program will optimize, upscale and transition to application electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) processing techniques for the manufacture of antireflective coatings for image intensifier tube faceplates. The room temperature and pressure ESA coating process consists of alternate adsorption of anionic and cationic molecules from aqueous solutions to form multilayer coatings monolayer-by-monolayer. Selection of the molecules in each monolayer, and the order of the monolayers through the coating, allows excellent control, combination and grading of multiple properties, including electrical conductivity, dielectric constant and loss tangent, thickness, optical transmissivity, abrasion resistance, thermal robustness, and electric field-controlled properties. ESA films may be assembled using immersion or spray techniques under ambient conditions to uniformly coat surfaces of virtually any size or shape, without the need for vacuum chamber confinement. During the Phase I program, effort, NanoSonic has demonstrated the synthesis, self-assembly and characterization of the low index materials necessary to fabricate antireflective nanoporous films. These films exhibit increased transmissivity, thus allowing more light to enter the image intensifier tube. Phase II will build directly on these Phase I results to optimize additional optical and durability coating charaterisitcs, and to upscale coating synthesis in size and speed in preparation for transition from R&D to manufacutring capabilities.