Automatic computer control of the manufacture of thin-film optical devices

This paper describes a project to investigate the feasibility of using a small digital computer to automatically control the manufacture of multilayer thin film optical interference devices. The manufacturing process and the computer control systems are described in detail and the results from a particular case study are presented. These results relate to the manufacture of a 5-layer antireflectance coating. The computer is shown to be able to control the process with precision and to have the potential for manufacturing devices toa consistent high quality.