Tungsten and Molybdenum with Sapphire

For the past 15 years single crystal sapphire has been at the cutting edge of semiconductor technology.

A combination of unique chemical, physical, optical and mechanical properties make sapphire the best choice for a broad spectrum.

•  Chemical resistance.
Sapphire is highly inert and resistant to attack in most process environments including hydrofluoric acid and the fluorine plasma applications commonly found in semiconductor wafer processing (NF3, CF4).

• Mechanical properties.
Sapphire is characterized by high toughness and solidity, and demonstrates excellent resistance in different environments ranging from cryogenic to over 1500°C. Due to this characteristics combined with chemical stability sapphire is widely used in medicine: endoscope and probe lenses, needles for thermal treatment of tumors, scalpels etc.

• Electrical properties.
Sapphire provides a high, stable dielectric constant with the electrical insulation required for LED, RF and microwave applications.

• Optical transmission.
Sapphire is characterized by high transmission in the range of UV to near IR. Given the chemical stability, high temperature and high pressure resistance sapphire is the preferred choice for window / viewport applications in high performance vacuum systems, furnaces, deep sea cameras, fire alarm systems etc.

• Surface properties.
Sapphire can be polished to very high flatness and smoothness for substrate applications and precision mechanical components.

• Thermal properties.
With a melting point over 2000°C, and high thermal conductivity sapphire is often used in many harsh process environments.

• Wear properties.
With high hardness and transparency, sapphire is used for scratch proof windows in high wear applications and for precision mechanical components.

If you want know more details about sapphire, please click the following link: www.tungsten-molybdenum-sapphire.com.

Tungsten and molybdenum is the most widely used material in the production of sapphire as for their excellent properties. If you are in producing sapphire, please feel free to contact us for the quotation of there two materials.

Synthetic Sapphire Applications

Along with zirconium and aluminium oxynitride, synthetic sapphire is used for shatter resistant windows in armored vehicles and various military body armor suits, in association with composites.

A common use of synthetic sapphire is in sapphire optical windows. The key benefits of sapphire windows are:

- Very wide optical transmission band from UV to near-infrared, (0.15-5.5 µm)  

-Significantly stronger than other optical materials or standard glass windows

- The hardest natural substance next to diamond

- Highly resistant to scratching and abrasion (9 Mohs scale)

- Extremely high melt temperature (2030°C)

 -Totally unaffected by all chemicals except some very hot caustics

Blue Sapphire

Sapphire glass windows (although being crystalline) are made from pure sapphire boules that have been grown in an application specific crystal orientation, typically along the optical axis, the c-axis, for standard optical windows for minimum birefringence. The boules are sliced up into the desired window thickness and finally polished to the desired surface finish. Sapphire optical windows can be polished to a wide range surface finishes due to its crystal structure and it hardness. The surface finishes of Optical Windows are normally called out by the Scratch-Dig specifications in accordance with the globally adopted MIL-O-13830 specification.

Synthetic Sapphire Applications

Sapphire glass windows are used in high pressure chambers for spectroscopy, crystals in various watches, and windows in grocery store barcode scanners since the material's exceptional hardness and toughness makes it very resistant to scratching.

Cermax xenon arc lamp with synthetic sapphire output window One type of xenon arc lamp (originally called the "Cermax" its first brand name), which is now known generically as the "ceramic body xenon lamp", uses sapphire crystal output windows that tolerate higher thermal loads – and thus higher output powers when compared with conventional Xe lamps with pure silica window.