Home » Blog » Difference between Household & Optical mirrors and how they are manufactured ?
Posted on : 10-06-2020 Author : Sandep Sonu Singh
Mirrors are commonly manufactured by coating metal, commonly used metals for coating are aluminium and silver. Metal plating is the common method for mirror coating. Choosing metals depends on where and for what purpose the mirrors are used.
Silver is the most reflective across the visible spectrum, It reflects 95 percent of light. Aluminum less reflective compared to silver can reflect 90 percent of light.
Household mirrors are used for people to see their appearance. For industrial and manufacturing applications Optical mirrors are used such as in Telescope, Optical camera etc. In Optical mirrors metal is coated on front surface.
In household mirrors the metal is coated on the back side of glass commonly called as 'silvering' (applying a thin layer of silver or aluminum) but most mirrors nowadays are made today by heating aluminum in a vacuum, which then bonds to the cooler glass.
An optical mirror can become more emissive gradually if its coating tarnishes, oxidises or is rough rather than smooth. since metal coating in optical mirror directly contacts the air it may oxidise sooner, so various coatings of metal are applied to increase the tickness of metal surface and also chemical treating and alloying processes are done thus increasing reflection.
