Diffuse Reflection of Ceramics Coated with Dielectric Thin Films

We have studied the diffuse reflection properties of ceramics in the presence of dielectric thin films on the surface. A simple optical model was proposed in which interference effects in a thin film were considered for light scattered out of a ceramic in various directions. Measurements were performed on angle-resolved reflection spectra of a thin-film-coated alumina ceramic in the case of normal incidence. They showed that the presence of the thin film on the ceramic ’s surface modified the angular distributions of scattered radiation from that of a bare ceramic, which suggested a way to tailor the scattering properties of a diffuse reflector as needed.