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Sapphire is an extremely hard material. It transmits light in the deep UV to MWIR range. A unique property of sapphire is its low thermal emissivity at high temperatures. This means that at high temperatures the material emits less thermal radiation than other materials. Sapphire can be used to make cavity windows that withstand high temperatures, and is suitable for infrared wavelength pass windows. The main disadvantage of sapphire is that its hardness makes optical processing difficult. In addition, sapphire has birefringence properties, and its refractive index is a function of the incident plane of polarization.
Sapphire is an extremely hard material. It transmits light in the deep UV to MWIR range. A unique property of sapphire is its low thermal emissivity at high temperatures. This means that at high temperatures the material emits less thermal radiation than other materials. Sapphire can be used to make cavity windows that withstand high temperatures, and is suitable for infrared wavelength pass windows. The main disadvantage of sapphire is that its hardness makes optical processing difficult. In addition, sapphire has birefringence properties, and its refractive index is a function of the incident plane of polarization.
