Talk:Silvering

Proposed merge from mercury silvering
The tag has been up for a long time over at mercury silvering, so I'm just here starting the discussion. I see no reason not to merge it because the mercury silvering article is just a stub that doesn't appear to be growing substantially, so it makes sense to consolidate. Wizard191 (talk) 23:30, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

aluminum coating for UV
I read an important paper on this some years ago (I do not have the reference or I would just edit the article); the author was associated with the US Naval Observatory I think. It is well known that aluminum is brighter in the UV than silver, just as gold is preferred in the IR. Optical instruments that operate in the UV have used aluminum mirrors since the 1930's, when modern vacuum coating got started. In the paper in question, from the 1950's I think, the researcher reported experiments to improve the aluminum coating process to get better short wave UV performance, ultimately yielding a recipe for making UV mirrors that operated well into the vacuum UV. The key step was a MgF2 overcoat, added while the fresh aluminum surface was still under vacuum. This coating protects the aluminum from oxidation, yielding a much brighter mirror. The thickness of the MgF2 coating was adjusted to optimize performance at short wavelengths. UV optimized mirrors are essential for short wave UV instruments. --AJim (talk) 01:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

"sputtering powdered aluminium"
I thought sputtering targets were usually solid? --BjKa (talk) 14:40, 14 February 2013 (UTC)