The correlation between mechanical stress, thermal shift and refractive index in HfO₂, Nb₂O₅, Ta₂O₅ and SiO₂ layers and its relation to the layer porosity

We present extended experimental material about optical and mechanical properties of oxide optical coating materials, deposited by electron beam evaporation, ion and plasma ion assisted evaporation, sputtering and ion plating. A clear correlation between these experimental data is established and understood as being caused by the different degree of the porosity of the films. This assumption has been verified by investigation of the layer structure and accompanying simulations of the effect of porosity on refractive index, layer stress and thermal shift. As a practical conclusion, we find that a certain pore fraction in the films is essential in order to get a valuable balance between optical and mechanical coating properties.