Development of metallic dielectric stacks for optical applications : design, production and characterization
This thesis deals the study of deposition conditions 'effect on the microstructure and optical properties of monolayers in order to achieve marketable optical filters, with particular specifications. All filters and monolayers were deposited by ion-assisted electron-beam evaporation technique. One of the two projects was to test the feasibility of infrared optical filters in the range [2-15] µm with non-toxic materials. The study of monolayers of three fluorides showed different behaviors depending on the deposition conditions especially as a function of the substrate temperature that affects their microstructure. For different filters realized, the association of BaF₂ with germanium, settings of deposition optimized, shows results close to the theory and these filters are marketable. The second project was to develop a deposition chamber in order to realize complex filters built with one hundred layers of variable thickness (15 to 300 nm) associating monolayers of TiO₂ with monolayers of SiO₂. The study of the influence of deposition parameters (pressure, ionic assistance, preheating of material) through different characterizations (SEM, AFM, ellipsometry) allowed the optimization of deposition's parameter settings more effective, and adapted according to the specifications of the optical filters to realize. Then, an ellipsometric advanced study of the refractive index of TiO₂ monolayers depending on their thickness led to a significant change in results for the realization of complex filter.