James Hamilton

University of Wisconsin-Platteville, USA

Title: Cleaner than a Cleanroom: Peelable Polymer Coatings Generate Atomically Clean Surfaces on LIGO, EUV Space Mirrors & Lithography Optics

---

Biography

As a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor, James Hamilton founded two companies, Xolve Inc. and Photonic Cleaning Technologies, the manufacturer of First Contact Polymers, that has sales in 79 countries. In Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, USA, he lectures on his research and collaborates all over the world. His current research specializes in contamination control on precision optical and aerospace surfaces, instrumentation development, nanoparticle thermodynamics, and nanocomposite materials. Following a BA and graduate work at UMaine-Orono in Inorganic Chemistry and Surface Science, he completed a Ph.D. in 1994 at UW-Madison in Physical & Analytical Chemistry, specializing in Coherent Nonlinear Optics, Spectroscopy & AMO Physics.

Abstract

Creating and maintaining unprecedented cleanliness levels has become a limiting technological requirement for projects like LIGO, future Starshade technology and mirrors for NASA’s Great Observatories of the future like the Habitable World’s Observatory that will have EUV capabilities.  Over the last 20 years, we have developed a family of peelable residue-free, non-tearing polymer coatings that safely clean and protect surfaces.  These Apply-Dry-Peel coatings begin to fill the technology gap that exists in a) trying to clean historically uncleanable nanostructured and coated surfaces as well as in b) meeting the zero dust tolerance requirements of high energy laser optics and some semiconductor processes. This family of First Contact Polymers (FCPs) was a critical, enabling technology in LIGO’s gravitational wave discoveries of 2015, NASA’s Starshade technology and can greatly extend the lifetime of current mirror coatings on large astronomical mirrors such as the 10meter class mirrors at the Keck Observatory and GTC in the Canary Islands.  This presentation will present selected data and research results in support of such physics projects worldwide.