Investigation of the effect of accumulation of thickness errors in optical coating production by broadband optical monitoring

We present a theoretical approach enabling one to perform a preproduction investigation of the effect of accumulation of thickness errors in the course of optical coating production using broadband optical monitoring. On the basis of this approach we investigate and compare thickness errors that may be associated with such factors as random and systematic errors in measurement data, instabilities of deposition rates, and inaccuracies of on-line algorithms predicting termination instants for layer depositions. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America