Hot Mirrors and Cold Mirrors
If you need to protect a delicate experimental setup from unwanted heat, you may need a hot mirror or a cold mirror. Hot mirrors and cold mirrors are versatile optics designed to separate infrared radiation from other light. They are typically multilayer dielectric mirrors, and can be manufactured in a variety of different substrates and configurations.
In this article we’ll look at hot mirrors and cold mirrors and just how they accomplish their purpose. Before we finish, we’ll go through a comparison of their technical features that can help you decide which mirror is best for you.
Hot Mirrors
Hot mirrors reflect as much as 90% of NIR and IR light while transmitting up to 80% of UV and visible light. Depending on the experimental setup, the reflected heat may be directed toward a heat sink or alternative component that can make use of the energy, or simply away from any delicate components that should be protected from heat.