Progress towards a small-scale, automated optical thin-film production capability

Full text: The Optical Thin-film group at CSIRO Telecommunications and Industrial Physics (CTIP) has, working over a number of years, built up considerable expertise in producing complex dielectric, multilayer thin-film designs to meet unusual and demanding optical performance specifications. At the same time the process of vacuum deposition of dielectric materials has been advanced, particularly by the development and use of ion-assisted deposition (IAD). Proposed modifications to our existing chamber (DB600) and the addition of a new, larger diameter chamber (DD750), presently under construction, will increase output and reliability while improving quality. We will describe the changes already made to the DB600 such as: the gridless ion source, in-situ ellipsometric monitoring along with spectrophotometric monitoring, full e-beam scan on the material source, complete source shuttering and reactive deposition of SiO2 from thermally evaporated SiO. The effects of making these beneficial changes will be described. Further changes to be made to the DB600 include, replacing its diffusion pump with a cryo-pump and automatic control of the deposition process. All the changes described for the DB600 along with a positive drive system for rotation of the substrate holder, rod feed e-gun hearths, and multiple crystal monitor heads, will be included in the DD750 design which will also be described. We believe that these improvements will give us the capability of small-scale production of reproducible, high quality filters