Optical Filters

Oxley specializes in the design, manufacture and application of optical filters for use with NVGs, offering a total in-house capability that continues to build on more than two decades of successfully meeting military operational needs providing visible or covert illumination to a wide range of installations and platforms including aircraft, vehicles and marine equipment.

This capability includes a state of the art coating plant, filter design carried out on specially designed filter modelling software, and rigorous environmental testing that together make Oxley the trusted and cost effective source for all night vision filter requirements.

Oxley offers a standard range of dichroic, absorptive and laminated filters in both glass and plastic substrates for multi and single purpose applications. Meeting MIL-STD-3009, the high performance NVG/NVIS filters remove unwanted (near infra-red) emissions from all types of display equipment. The filters offer outstanding sunlight readability, high temperature resistance and very high source photopic transmittance against low T2B.

NVG filter design is carried out on specially designed filter modelling software in which spectrophotometric data for the filters is combined with the specific measured source data and optimized for the specification requirements. Rigorous environmental testing includes humidity, temperature cycling, salt fog and vibration.

With a choice of Monolithic, Laminox®, coated glass and plastic filters now available, Oxley can supply NVIS colors Green A and B, Red, Yellow A and B and White in thickness of 1 to 4mm, and for use with incandescent, CCFL, CRT and LED light sources.

Custom Coating Design

Oxley offers a complete design service taking any customer definition to produce a customized coating that precisely meets their needs. Specialized software models the requirements and is then translated into a filter coating solution produced by Oxley’s advanced in-house optical coating plant. This unique capability provides design, simulation, manufacture and test in one secure and quality-controlled location. Coating capabilities include:

Short/Long/Band Pass Filters - Coatings which can almost totally block unwanted areas of the spectrum while transmitting the required bands are available either by defining the specific areas or providing a required end application (such as an NVIS filter requirement). Any areas of the Vis/NIR spectrum can be filtered in this way with steep transition between blocking and transmitting regions.
Anti-reflection coatings - often combined with night vision filters to prevent sunlight glare and reduce user fatigue which are particularly important during extended operations. They can be broadband or tuned to a specific wavelength or a number of wavelengths within the Vis/NIR region.
EMC screening for monitors and other electrical devices - achieved by the application of conductive coatings on glass and other materials to provide clear view protection - 100 MHz up to 40 GHz.
Conductive coatings used to electrically heat a glass surface - for applications such as de-icing on external aircraft lighting for military and civil users.
Specialist coatings can create ‘hot and cold mirrors’ - to reflect infra-red or visible energy.

View summary chart of selected Oxley filters and download individual data sheets from our catalogue.