In the various phases of the development, production, and use of optical thin film coatings, it is vital to choose proper materials not only with respect to their optical properties but just as essential with respect to their environmental durability. If envi-ronmental tests reveal failures in optical coatings, this may be due to interactions between the layers and/or between the substrate and the first layer. Such interactions can be established and analyzed by depth profiling using electron- and/or ion-beam methods. Empha-sis must be placed on the practicability of these analysis methods with dielectric coatings where difficulties may sometimes arise because of decomposition, diffusion or intermixing, and charging effects during analysis.

Date Published: 13 October 1986
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 0652, Thin Film Technologies II, (13 October 1986); doi: 10.1117/12.938382

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0652:
Thin Film Technologies II
J. Roland Jacobsson, Editor(s)