Optical Thin Film Coating Technology
2009 Course Description

The course serves both as an introduction and a review for engineers and scientists of the principles of optical interference filter design while considering, in addition, recent advances in the current technology. Five sessions cover basic design techniques, coating types and their characteristics. The other five sessions include coating fabrication, substrate preparation, characterization, and digital design techniques. A tour of the University coating facilities stresses deposition and characterization methods and includes a tour of the OMEGA laser. Classes will start at 8:30 and end at 5:00.

• June 15, Monday morning
  Design Single-Layer Films, Mr. James B. Oliver:
  Index of refraction, absorption, dispersion, coating and substrate materials. Reflectance and transmittance of substrates and single-layer films, optical thickness, and interference. Coherent versus incoherent illumination.

• June 15, Monday afternoon
  Coating Techniques, Mr. James B. Oliver:
  Review of various methods for producing optical films, thin film structure, optical and physical thickness monitoring techniques, uniformity, and process control.

• June 15, Monday evening
  OMEGA TOUR
  5:30 pm, LLE, 240 East River Road

• June 16, Tuesday morning
  Design-Anti-Reflection Coatings, Mr. James B. Oliver:
  AR Coatings: Single layer, two layer, multilayer, and gradient index. Graphical design techniques; computer optimization techniques.

• June 16, Tuesday afternoon
  Tour of a large substrate coating facility for high peak-power lasers, Mr. James B. Oliver and Ms. Amy Rigatti:
  The students will see three areas: coating, cleaning, and characterization (surface metrology, damage conditioning, and photometry). (1:30 pm - 4:00 pm)

• June 17, Wednesday morning
  Design-High Reflector Coatings, Mr. James B. Oliver:
  Dielectric reflectors: quarterwave stack, modified quarterwave stack, broad band reflectors. Order suppression, electric field profiles, rugate designs. Metal films, enhanced metal reflectors.

• June 17, Wednesday afternoon
  Numerical Methods for Design and Manufacture of Multilayer Systems I, Dr. J.A. Dobrowolski:
  1) Introduction to Optical Filters. 2) Numerical methods for design: optimization methods; synthesis methods for the design of layer systems with pre-defined spectral performance (comprehensive search, evolution, minus filter, flip-flop, inverse Fourier transform and needle methods).

• June 18, Thursday morning
  Numerical Methods II, Dr. J.A. Dobrowolski:
  2) (cont’d) Digital methods for the determination of the optical constants of coating materials. Information for the control of the manufacture of complicated multilayer systems. 3) Conventional and unusual applications of optical coatings.

• June 18, Thursday afternoon
  Design-Band Pass Filters, Mr. James B. Oliver:
  Short and long wavelength and narrow band pass filters. Band pass filter design techniques: Herpin equivalent index, blocking methods. Metal-dielectric filters and graphical design techniques.

• June 19, Friday morning
  Design-Non-normal incidence, Mr. James B. Oliver:
  Polarization of light. Incidence angle effects on refractive index and filter design. Polarizing beam splitter and phase control coatings.

• June 19, Friday afternoon
  Characterization of Optical Thin Films, Mr. Douglas J. Smith:
  Techniques of spectral measurement, determination of refractive index using various techniques; measurement of absorption, scatter and surface roughness, optical and electron microscopy techniques, methods of film analysis. Damage testing and measurement of stress and effect of coating stress on substrates.

  {Please note: while the course descriptions and instructors listed above are final, it is possible that circumstances beyond our control could necessitate minor alterations.}