Regular Article

Very thick mixture oxide ion beam sputtering films for investigation of nonlinear material properties^★

¹ Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V., Hannover, Germany
² Institut für Quantenoptik, QUEST, Leibniz Universität, Hannover, Germany

^* e-mail: m.steinecke@lzh.de

Received: 4 July 2017
Received in final form: 29 September 2017
Accepted: 6 November 2017
Published online: 29 November 2017

Abstract

Currently, optical coating technology is facing a multitude of new challenges. Some of the new requirements are addressed to the spectral behavior of complex coatings, but in addition, the power handling capabilities gain in importance. Often, both demands are combined in the same component, for example in chirped mirrors for ultra-short pulse applications. The consequent demands on the accuracy of the layer thicknesses and the stability of the refractive indices require a deposition by sputtering processes. For high end components, Ion Beam Sputtering (IBS) is often the method of choice. Utilizing the Co-sputtering technique, IBS additionally allows a higher flexibility in the possible coating materials by mixing two pure oxides into one ternary composite material. These composite materials are also advantageous for researching third order nonlinear effects, which can limit the functionality of optics at high powers. The layer thicknesses required for this fundamental research often exceed 100 µm, which therefore makes low stress and absorption in the layer materials mandatory. A reduction of these decisive properties can be achieved by a thermal treatment of the sample. Usually, this is performed by a post-deposition annealing. Alternatively, the coating temperature can be increased. This is rarely done for IBS processes, but it can be assumed, that the effect is comparable to that of ex-situ annealing. In this work, different ternary mixtures of Al₂O₃/SiO₂, HfO₂/Al₂O₃ as well as Nb₂O₅/Al₂O₃ were investigated for their layer stress and absorption, applying both, in-situ temperature treatment as well as post manufacturing annealing. It is observed that suitable thermal treatment as well as material composition can significantly reduce layer stress and absorption in the deposited layer. This enabled the manufacturing of layers with thicknesses of over 180 µm as well as the measurement of nonlinear properties of the deposited materials.