CornerCube is a Netherlands-based developer of precision prism solutions for the geodesy and land surveying sector.
The company occupies a deliberate position in the market: between the high cost of traditional professional prisms and the compromised accuracy of reflective stickers. CornerCube's products are engineered to deliver the precision of high-quality optical instruments at a price point that makes them practical for everyday site use
CornerCube's Challenges
Precision optical glass is inherently wettable. Water spreads readily across an untreated glass surface, forming a thin film that scatters and attenuates the retro-reflected signal that total stations and GPS equipment depend on. In dry conditions, glass prisms perform as designed. In rain, condensation, frost or freezing fog — the conditions surveyors regularly encounter — performance degrades at exactly the moment when reliability matters most.
Weather-Induced Reflector Degradation:
Moisture, condensation and icing on prism surfaces reduce the reflected signal reaching a total station's Autolock sensor, degrading both lock-on range and distance measurement accuracy. For surveyors working to tight tolerances or within limited weather windows, this is both a quality problem and a direct productivity cost.
The Limits of Conventional Protective Coatings:
Parylene is a highly effective biocompatible moisture barrier, but difficult to bond to chemically inert or ultra-smooth surfaces. Without adequate surface preparation, Parylene coatings can peel or fail at the interface, compromising long-term barrier integrity on which device safety depends. For MDMC, finding a consistent, scalable solution to this adhesion challenge was essential to expanding the range of projects the centre could support.
Working with CornerCube to Solve their Problems
CornerCube's search for a treatment partner led to Henniker Plasma's UK team. The application CornerCube described, a permanent hydrophobic nano-coating on precision optical glass prisms for outdoor surveying use, was, as far as Henniker's applications engineers could determine, without direct precedent in the geodesy sector. That novelty was not an obstacle. It was exactly the kind of application Henniker's contract treatment service is designed to address.
Henniker Plasma's contract treatment service provides direct access to the company's technical team and production equipment for customers who need a specific surface treatment outcome without the capital commitment of an in-house system. Rather than acquiring plasma coating equipment and developing a novel process independently, CornerCube could work with Henniker's engineers to assess the application, select the appropriate process parameters, and have components treated to specification, with results in hand within a practical timeframe.
The treatment selected was CoatX® SFE, Henniker's nano-scale hydrophobic coating technology. CoatX® SFE deposits a thin, covalently bonded coating onto the substrate surface via plasma polymerisation, carried out in Henniker's Nebula system: a large-format vacuum plasma platform designed for precise, repeatable coating of components at batch scale. Unlike surface sprays, the CoatX® SFE layer is bonded directly to the glass and cannot be wiped off or depleted through normal service.
Henniker's technical team treated a series of CornerCube's prisms to agreed parameters, applying the CoatX® SFE hydrophobic coating to the optical glass surfaces. The treated samples were then returned to CornerCube for structured field evaluation across a range of equipment types, survey conditions and geographic locations.
What the customer said:
“Henniker took up my ideas without hesitation and saw the potential, a true partnership exploring plasma coating's added value in geodesy.”
Freddy Walta
Senior Land Surveyor and Founder
Results
Permanent Hydrophobic Surface Modification:
The CoatX® SFE treatment produced a permanently hydrophobic surface on the treated prism faces. Rather than spreading into a continuous film, water beads and runs off the treated glass readily, consistent with the high contact angles CoatX® SFE achieves on glass substrates. The coating is chemically bonded to the surface and does not require renewal; treated prisms are suitable for repeated handling and outdoor deployment without loss of hydrophobic performance.
Field Evaluation:
Treated prisms are currently being evaluated on live surveying projects in the Netherlands and Canada, with trials conducted by experienced surveyors using different total station types across a range of weather conditions. The evaluation is assessing Autolock lock-on range and distance measurement accuracy relative to untreated control prisms in matching conditions. Early findings will determine whether CornerCube proceeds with production-scale contract treatment of its prism range.
Business Impact
Permanent Hydrophobic Surface Modification:
The CoatX® SFE treatment produced a permanently hydrophobic surface on the treated prism faces. Rather than spreading into a continuous film, water beads and runs off the treated glass readily, consistent with the high contact angles CoatX® SFE achieves on glass substrates. The coating is chemically bonded to the surface and does not require renewal; treated prisms are suitable for repeated handling and outdoor deployment without loss of hydrophobic performance.
Field Evaluation:
Treated prisms are currently being evaluated on live surveying projects in the Netherlands and Canada, with trials conducted by experienced surveyors using different total station types across a range of weather conditions. The evaluation is assessing Autolock lock-on range and distance measurement accuracy relative to untreated control prisms in matching conditions. Early findings will determine whether CornerCube proceeds with production-scale contract treatment of its prism range
