TopFlex™ – dirt- and dust-repellent thanks to hydrophobic thin film coatings

With TopFlex^TM, Optics Balzers now also offers a surface coating that repels dirt, liquids, and chemicals. The original idea of coating eyeglasses has thus been successfully transferred to other applications in the fields of medical technology, industry, and building construction.

TopFlex^TM is a surface coating with hydrophobic characteristics. It is chemically resistant to water, oils, and fats. Moreover, TopFlex^TM is dirt-repellent and easy to clean. TopFlex^TM offers excellent adhesive properties on the substrate and is suitable for a wide variety of cleaning processes.

TopFlex^TM is a highly planar and enclosed surface coating and can be combined with all coating systems, as it is spectrally neutral in the VIS and IR regions. Its hydrophobic properties are especially evident at a wetting angle up to 120°. At this wetting angle, fluids und dirt cannot adhere to the surface, or only very poorly. This makes such surfaces very easy to clean. Thanks to their film stability up to 300°C, TopFlex^TM-coated components can be applied even in adverse conditions. As a surface coating, TopFlex^TM is also resistant to scratching and corrosion.

TopFlex^TM has conquered new fields of application in which ease of maintenance and resistance to dirt are required. TopFlex^TM is applied in endoscopy, in sensor systems, and in special-purpose cameras which are used for instance to inspect sewage systems. Other fields of application include research activities, metallic coatings, or medical devices.