Scattering properties of hot isostatic pressed multispectral zinc sulfide

A common window material for applications that require the simultaneous use of visible and infrared wavelengths is zinc sulfide, which offers a high transmittance between 400 nm and 12 mm. Depending on the manufacturing process, zinc sulfide can, however, exhibit large scattering losses ( > 10%) which degrade the imaging quality in particular in the visible spectral range. In this contribution, the different sources for light scattering such as volume imperfections, surface roughness, and subsurface damage are analyzed individually for hot isostatic pressed chemical vapor deposited zinc sulfide and correlated to the structural properties resulting from the fabrication process.