Repeatability of the composition of titanium oxide films produced by evaporation of Ti2O3

Congruent vaporization is a process that yields constant vapor species. Ti2O3 was continuously electron-beam evaporated to produce titanium oxide thin films. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry was employed to study the evolution of the composition of these films. It seems that congruent vaporization can be established in a coating plant. TiO2 films produced by conventional reactive deposition tend to contain mixtures of titanium oxides. Increasing the transmission of TiO2 films becomes an issue of increasing the TiO2 component in the films by adequate reactive evaporation. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.