Welcome to Cutting Edge Coatings GmbH

 

 

WHO WE ARE ?

 

Cutting Edge Coatings GmbH (CEC)

 

Cutting Edge Coating GmbH was founded  in 2007 by Dr. Kai Starke in Hanover, the capital city of Lower Saxony, Germany.  With the support of  Laser Zentrum Hannover (LZH), Dr. Kai Starke started his business to produce Ion Beam Sputtering (IBS) deposition systems.

As a spin-off company of Laser Zentrum Hannover, CEC is destined to be a high-tech coating company. CEC's core technical staff - some from Laser Zentrum Hannover - has many years of experience in IBS coating. Every year CEC takes part in national scientific research projects, in addition to some international scientific research projects. In 2019, CEC wins the honours of "Innovative Through Research" by the German Stifterverband.

 

 WHAT WE ARE DOING ?

 

Ion Beam Sputtering (IBS) Deposition System and IBS Coating Technology

 

Set up in 2007, CEC focuses on producing and developing their in-house ion beam sputtering coating system - NAVIGATOR IBS. Ion beam sputtering is known as the industrial physical vapour deposition (PVD) coating process to reach the highest thin-film quality. It is therefore preferred for demanding laser applications. Compared to other PVD coating method, IBS is famous for thin-film ultra-dense, low loss, low absorption, high laser damage threshold (LIDT), and low stress.

 

CEC's IBS coating machine can not only do general High/ Low (HL) thin film layers, but  can also do mixture materials coating. This means, the ion source sputters two targets of different material at the same time. This advanced mixture coating technology has many advantages, such as form gradient index, elimination of the film interface, super low stress, and production of complicated  Rugate  filters. Providing these cutting-edge IBS coating technologies is  our business and we are always there to support our customers in staying ahead of their competitors.

 

WHAT IS OUR PHILOSOPHY ?

 

Delivering Cutting-edge Innovations in IBS Coating and Customer Satisfaction

 

The coating process is based on ion beam sputtering of metal or dielectric targets. The equipment incorporates about 20 years of experience in the field of IBS coatings for high performance laser applications. The coating systems are designed for the manufacturing of thin-film optical coatings for the most demanding applications in fine optics and laser technology.

 

Custom-tailored processes are optimized by using test set-ups for damage resistance, absorption, scattering etc. designed according to ISO standards. Aiding our customers to have the most advanced IBS coating technology at hand is our job and we are always there whenever our customers need us.

 

THE NEWS !

 

New  Thruster Test Facility is developed

 

Thruster Test Facilities are large vacuum chambers that can be cooled and heated to test small satellites or ion thrusters for use in space. The chambers are usually several meters long and just under 2m in diameter. In addition, there is a smaller chamber, which is separated from the main chamber by a valve, in order to be able to transfer parts into it. They have been successfully used to research institutions in the UK.

 

 

Next Generation  IBS Coating  System - NAVIGATOR 2500

 

Since 2022, CEC has successfully developed the new IBS Deposition System -  NAVIGATOR 2500. It now has two substrate palettes with a diameter of 650 mm each, which will hugely improve the productivity and also turn the coating of big-diameter-substrates into reality. This new type of IBS system has already been sold and continues to be requested and booked by our customer.