Self-Assembled Optical Coatings for Helmet Mounted Display Visors

"The proposed Phase II program will optimize, upscale and transition to application electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) processes for the synthesis of durable optical coatings on helmet mounted display visors. The room temperature and pressure ESA coatingprocess consists of alternate adsorption of anionic and cationic molecules from water solutions to form multilayer coatings monolayer-by-monolayer. Selection of the molecules in each monolayer, and the order of the monolayers through the coating, allowsexcellent 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-controlledproperties. ESA films may be dipped or sprayed under ambient conditions to conformally coat surfaces of virtually any size or shape, without the need for vacuum chamber confinement. During the ongoing Phase I program, NanoSonic has demonstrated thesynthesis, self-assembly and characterization of the high index polymers necessary for effective optical filter design, and are currently working to optimize the synthesis procedures and resulting self-assembled structures. In Phase II, NanoSonic wouldbuild directly on these promising results to optimize the optical filter design and fabricate multilayer reflectance filters that can be coated directly on helmet visors for display applications. Nano