Press Releases

Alluxa, Inc., a global leader in high-performance optical coatings and filters and thin-film deposition technologies, introduces a breakthrough 10.6 µm infrared (IR) notch filter with optical density > 4.0 (OD4). The innovative, high-layer-count IR optical coating is produced by utilizing Alluxa’s proprietary deposition capabilities that now deliver groundbreaking optical coating performance in the 8 µm to 12 µm spectral range.

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Alluxa, Inc., a global leader in thin-film deposition technology and high-performance optical coatings and filters, is pleased to announce Bill Kastanis as the new vice president of operations, effective immediately. A highly-respected veteran in optics and photonics, Bill has over 35 years of experience in operations, vacuum deposition, and factory automation.

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Santa Rosa, CA - Alluxa, Inc., a global leader in high-performance optical filters and optical coatings, is pleased to announce the promotion of Kevin Nolen to director of engineering, effective immediately. Kevin has served in a variety of engineering and operations roles at Alluxa for more than 12 years. He will be responsible for guiding and executing Alluxa’s developmental engineering efforts that support factory automation, deposition process improvements, and product engineering projects. Kevin has a BS ME from California State University, Chico.

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New multi-cavity ultra-narrow thin-film filters feature a revolutionary bandwidth of only 0.1 nm while maintaining transmission of > 80%.

Santa Rosa, CA - Alluxa, Inc., a global leader in thin-film deposition technology and high-performance optical coatings and filters, is pleased to announce the production of a new class of multi-cavity ultra-narrow bandpass filters with 0.1 nm bandwidths and OD6 blocking.

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Santa Rosa, CA - Alluxa, Inc., the leader in high performance optical filters and optical coatings today announced Jason Mulliner is joining Alluxa as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Jason will oversee Alluxa's Finance, IT, and HR organizations and report to CEO, Mike Scobey.

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Santa Rosa, CA – Alluxa, Inc., the leader in high performance optical filters and optical coatings is pleased to announce a further factory expansion at its Santa Rosa location that will double its production capacity over the next 2 years.

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Santa Rosa, CA – Alluxa, Inc., the leader in high performance optical filters and optical coatings is pleased to announce that its Ultra Series Optical Filters have been installed in the Kinetic River Potomac Modular Flow Cytometer at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. Continue reading →

Article published in Laser Focus World June 2016

Advances in thin-film technology have given rise to a new class of multiband coatings that task manufacturers to offer improved performance at competitive prices, enabling multiband filters that redefine the performance standards and drive innovation across a variety of disciplines.

Multiband filters can be categorized into a variety of classes that solve unique optical problems. Each class presents its own set of fabrication challenges, placing limits on what is practically achievable and affecting the reliability of the thin-film manufacturing process. By understanding the scientific and industrial applications for multiband filters, the various filter classes and manufacturing possibilities are better understood.

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Santa Rosa, CA – Alluxa, the leader in optical filters and optical coatings is pleased to announce the expansion of its online catalog with an offering of Ultra Series life science optical filters. Focused on fluorescence applications, the catalog includes Ultra Series filter sets and individual filters optimized for use with specific fluorophores.

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Santa Rosa, CA – January 12th, 2016: Alluxa, Inc., the leader in high performance optical filters and optical coatings announces the completion of its capacity expansion at its Santa Rosa, CA facilities bringing the total number of identical plasma deposition machines to 10.

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Article published in Laser Focus World December 14th 2015

Optical filters can have a dramatic effect on outcomes in life sciences. These principles demonstrate how next-generation thin film enhances excitation and emission in fluorescence bioimaging systems.

Sophisticated optical instrumentation facilitates advanced bioimaging, and high-performance optical filtering improves fluorescence detection systems. Because proper optical filtering boosts throughput and enables wide-scale blocking, it solves problems like increasing the sensitivity of a system to detect infinitesimally small fluorescent signals emitted from biological samples. Too much light can lead to overexposure at the sensor, thus masking the signal—the filter helps to remove unwanted light so that the fluorescence response can be identified and measured. In fact, filters are arguably the most important element defining system performance for fluorescence detection. And thanks to manufacturing innovation, they can do so at competitive price points. Let's take a look at some important concepts in optical filtering and how they can improve outcomes in biomedical research.

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Santa Rosa, CA – Alluxa, Inc, the leading provider of high performance thin film optical coatings is proud to announce that it has received ISO 9001:2008 certification for its Santa Rosa, CA headquarters. Continue reading →

Article published in Photonics Spectra December 2015

Phase control has been an important component in optical design in applications using ultrashort pulse lasers and high-data-rate telecommunications lasers. Now, phase control requirements are emerging in life sciences applications such as structured illumination and multiphoton microscopy.

Thin-film filters (TFFs) can create virtually any spectral shape imaginable to modify the transmission or reflection of light in optical systems. During design, strong emphasis is often placed on optimizing the amplitude response, although for many emerging optics applications, equally important is the need to control the phase of the light. The frequently neglected phase response is increasingly a consideration for optical coating manufacturers, creating challenges that require new, sophisticated design and manufacturing methods.

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Alluxa's Peter Egerton discussing the importance of the Laser World of Photonics show to the industry and how lasers, optics technology, and filters all come together.

Rodd Pedrotti, editor and host of Light Matters for Photonics Media gets a candid perspective on the Laser World of Photonics show in Munich Germany from Alluxa's EVP of Business Development Peter Egerton.
See the full video here.

Santa Rosa, Ca – ALLUXA, a leader in next generation high performance optical filters, announced today that it has entered into a partnership with Laser Components GmbH to sell and distribute Alluxa optical filters and coatings in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Continue reading →

Santa Rosa, CA - Alluxa, the leader in high performance optical filters and optical coatings is pleased to announce our new online store focused on Ultra Narrow Bandpass filters.

Our new product catalog provides an overview of our Ultra-Narrowband filters along with technical information and easy online ordering. Designed to be informative and user-friendly, the catalog is available online here.

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Article published in SPIE Optical Design & Engineering December 18th, 2013.

A novel computer-controlled deposition system for multicavity filters improves their spectral precision and contrast.

Narrowband filters are a critical technology for a variety of applications such as lidar (light detection and ranging), laser cleanup, chemical and gas sensing, instrumentation, and astronomy. The design principles are well known and relatively simple. All designs rely on stacked Fabry-Pérot resonant cavities with dielectric reflectors composed of layers a quarter of a wavelength thick, spaced apart by cavities multiple half-wavelengths across. Several cavity filters are used in combination to ‘square up’ the spectral wave shape, resulting in the transmitted light having a ‘flat-topped’ spectrum when compared with that from light passed through single-cavity filters, which has a sharp, peaked spectral shape. Such multicavity filters also have much steeper rejection responses than single-cavity filters: the less-steep spectral slopes of single-cavity filters can compromise signal-to-noise in narrowband detection.

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Alluxa Inc., a leader in high performance optical filters for the visible and NIR is pleased to introduce an extension of its next generation plasma deposition process to filters in the mid-IR spectrum.

These new mid-IR filters are deposited using Alluxa’s proprietary plasma PVD deposition technology and include narrowband, multiband, notch and edge filters. The filters offer Alluxa’s characteristic ultra-high transmission, steep slopes and square filter profiles. Another unique aspect of Alluxa’s new filter technology is an absence of absorption in the water band at 2.7um, enabling the industry’s highest transmission at every wavelength between 2.5 um and 3.0 um. In addition to high performance optical characteristics, Alluxa’s mid-IR filters have completed 10 cycles of the rigorous MIL-810G environmental testing to ensure the durability and versatility of the coatings in end use applications.

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Alluxa, an emerging leader in next generation optical filters is pleased to announce the production of ultra-flat dichroic and polychroic filters with very high levels of in band transmission.

These filters are unique because they achieve flatness by eliminating the high stresses of as-deposited traditional ion-based coating process such as Ion Beam Sputtering (IBS) and Ion Assisted Deposition (IAD). Alluxa’s new technique uses a novel plasma hard coating process that produces low-loss, fully dense dielectric films with essentially net zero stress on the primary coated side. Because of this process, the films do not require the lengthy additional coating time of industry standard backside compensation or require the use of thick and expensive substrates. Continue reading →

Alluxa, an emerging leader in next generation optical filters is pleased to announce the production of Ultra-Narrow band filters with very high levels of in-band transmission.

According to CEO Mike Scobey “As we optimize the performance of our coating systems, we are continually striving to push the limits of production-ready filter performance like this Ultra-Narrow filter. These filters are now manufacturing ready, not simply created once as a demonstration of capability. We are excited by new products like these because they offer our customers the highest levels of performance at competitive prices.” Continue reading →