Photonics

Carpinteria, California - June 7, 2004 - NuSil Technology, a leading formulator and manufacturer of silicone compounds for healthcare, aerospace and electronics, recently expanded into the fiber optics and photonics industries by acquiring Lightspan. Lightspan specializes in designing fluids, gels, coatings, thermosets and encapsulation materials for refractive index matching, and offers variety in material at the same refractive index, most notably 1.57 refractive index materials. This variety provides the engineering world with material options when matching a refractive index.

Now a NuSil product family, Lightspan brand’s ability to continually progress with customer demands places NuSil at the forefront of the photonics industry. As technology advances, such as the expanding use of Light Emitting Diodes (LED’s), the demand for higher refractive index materials increases. Obtaining a higher refractive index in a material provides more efficiency in configurations. By offering the most complete line of the highest refractive index materials, NuSil offers their customers options, and in turn, helps improve the efficiency of photonics technology, including LED, waveguide and optical plastic applications.

More industries are employing LED’s because of their advantage in efficiency, however some LED components still generate high temperatures. Silicones maintain maximum optical clarity and the proper refractive index in high temperature applications, making silicone the material of choice for packaging LED’s. Therefore NuSil’s Lightspan products, specifically the line of materials with 1.57 refractive index, are a key component in current and future LED technology.

NuSil offers the most extensive line of 1.57 refractive index materials, allowing customers four material options:

• LS-5257 is an optical fluid composed of chemically inert synthetic polymers. Typical applications include projection display components, metrology fluids, and testing and troubleshooting.
• LS-3357 is an ultra-clear encapsulation gel composed of a crosslinkable synthetic polymer fluid designed to protect sensitive photonics and electro-optics from dust, moisture and mechanical vibration. Typical applications include flat plan displays, HBLEDs and photodectors, encapsulation of hybrid electro-optic circuit boards, potting, tacking and staking.
• SL-1259 is a non-curing thixotropic optical gel composed of an optical polymer immobilized in a nanoparticle powder. SL-1259 is thixotropic in consistency, optically clear in thin sections, and designed to encapsulate and protect sensitive components from dust, moisture, solvents and shock. Some typical applications include fiber and light pipe splicing, small flat-panel displays, low-stress pigtailing, testing and troubleshooting, and optically clear matrix media.
• LS-6257 is an optical thermoset that is a curable, soft elastomer system for cast or injection molding. Typical applications include HBLED’s, photodectectors, lasers, discrete optics, waveguide cores, flat panel displays and optically clear underfils.

These products were designed to cater to the needs of performance driven applications and offer photonics customers choices for index-matching applications requiring potting, encapsulating and coating materials. For more information regarding these index matching materials, please contact the Lightspan application laboratory at (508) 295 9110 or visit our website at www.light-span.com.