Electron beam deposited multilayer optical interference coatings using oxide composites

Abstract

Optical multilayer interference coatings are not only the key elements/components of the lasers, synchrotron (beam lines), and solar devices but also serve to propagate, deliver and manipulate electromagnetic radiations involved there for materials science experiments. Composite oxide thin film materials have added several promising dimensions with respect to the design, development of such precision devices related to such applications. Binary ZrO2MgO and ternary ZrO<inf>2</inf>-MgO-Al<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf> oxide composite thin films have been deposited using electron beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) technique and nano-metric multilayer devices utilizing such films in a regular periodic layered design have been developed. As a specific objective, a multilayer high-reflection (HR) laser mirror having a designated bandwidth has been designed and developed for the Nd:YAG second harmonic laser wavelength of 532 run. These composite thin films and multilayers have been characterized using various microstructural probing techniques.