Optical interference coatings: eighth topical meeting

Brian T. Sullivan

A brief account is given of the Eighth Optical Society of America Topical Meeting on Optical InterferenceCoatings held 15–20 July 2001 in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Photographs of some attendees are appended.© 2002 Optical Society of America

OCIS codes: 310.0310, 310.1620, 310.1860, 310.3840.

The Optical Interference Coatings �OIC� topicalmeeting, currently held every three years, is the pre-mier international conference in the field of thinfilms. The eighth edition of this conference tookplace in Banff, Alberta, Canada �the first time it hasbeen held outside the USA� from 15 to 20 July 2001.This meeting is sponsored by the Optical Society ofAmerica �OSA� in cooperation with the Society ofPhoto-Optical Instrumentation Engineers—the In-ternational Society of Optical Engineering, the Euro-pean Optical Society, and the Society of VacuumCoaters.

By all measures, this conference was a great suc-cess. More than 350 people attended from morethan 20 countries. There were 124 contributed pa-pers, 26 invited papers, 1 tutorial, and 2 eveninglectures held during the conference. In addition, 25exhibitors from North America, Europe, and Asia at-tended the meeting, displaying products varyingfrom thin-film design and characterization programsto deposition systems. On the Sunday preceding theconference, more than 150 people enrolled in fiveshort courses that covered subjects ranging fromthin-film growth fundamentals to deposition andprocess-control techniques to optical and physicalcharacterization of thin films.

This meeting marked the first time that websiteswere used to disseminate OIC conference informa-tion, and this proved very successful. A conferencewebsite �www.oic2001.org� was set up initially to in-form potential authors and attendees of the progress

Brian T. Sullivan �brian.sullivan@iridian.ca� is with IridianSpectral Technologies Ltd., Building M50, 1200 Montreal Road,Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6.

Received 25 February 2002; revised manuscript received 14March 2002.

0003-6935�02�163016-06$15.00�0© 2002 Optical Society of America

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of the organization and also to provide information onthe design contest and manufacturing problem.Subsequently, the OSA set up its own website toprovide information on accommodation, call for pa-pers, etc., and this website has also been used afterthe conference to host many of the conference posterpresentations.

This conference was fortunate to have had excel-lent support from the industrial sector; more than$37,000 �U.S.�, the largest amount ever for an OICmeeting, was raised to help support the travel ofscientists and students who otherwise would havebeen unable to attend this conference. In addition,this corporate sponsorship provided the necessaryfunding for the conference banquet, the evening lec-tures, the welcoming reception and various coffeebreaks, and the conference website. Amongst thecompanies who made significant contributions inmoney or in kind were Deposition Sciences; EM In-dustries�Merck KgaA; Iridian Spectral Technologies;JDS Uniphase; JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, SystemeGmbH �L.O.S.�; Leybold Optics; Schott Telecom Op-tics, and Shincron Company Ltd. The meeting itselfwas held at the Banff Centre for Conferences, whichprovided excellent accommodation and meal servicesin addition to very scenic surroundings.

This meeting focused on the development and ap-plications of optical coatings and included fundamen-tal and theoretical contributions in the field, as wellas practical techniques and applications. In thetechnical sessions, several topics were covered, in-cluding “Thin Film Deposition,” “Monitoring & Pro-cess Control,” “Optical & Physical Characterization,”“Thin Film Design,” “Coatings for EUV to UV Wave-lengths,” “Applications of Thin Films,” “BirefringentCoatings,” “Thin Film Polarizers,” “Thin Film Dis-plays” and finally, the highlighted topic for the con-ference, “Telecommunication Filters.” With regardto the format of the technical sessions, the conferencecontinued with its traditional 5-min, contributed pa-

per presentations �30 min for invited papers� followedby poster sessions after the morning and afternoonsessions. This format, unique to the OIC, remainspopular as it ensures that there are no parallel ses-sions in this meeting.

As in previous OIC conferences, attendees wereinvited to participate in a design problem contest.This exercise tested the state of the art of thin-filmdesign software and of designer skill for problemswhose solutions are pressing in this area. For thisconference, two problems were presented: the firstproblem called for the design of gain-flattening filtersthat could be readily manufactured, and the secondproblem was concerned with the group delay in anarrowband filter. In addition, for the first time inan OIC conference, a manufacturing-type problemwas posed in which participants were challenged toconstruct a filter that would meet certain spectraltransmittance and reflectance characteristics asclosely as possible. For this exercise, the spectraltransmittance and reflectance curves were selected tocorrespond to the silhouette and its reflection in BowLake of a mountain range in the Canadian Rockies, asite that was within driving distance of Banff �see thefront cover of this issue�. The full details on both thedesign contest and the manufacturing problem, alongwith the results from participants, are presented inthis issue.

On the social side, before, during, and after theconference, there were plenty of activities for confer-ence attendees, along with their spouses and fami-lies. On the Sunday preceding the meeting, therewere several tours available to see Banff NationalPark and the surrounding areas. On the openingevening of the meeting, there was a Wine & CheeseReception to welcome back conference attendees.During the conference, there was an evening banquet�sponsored by Balzers Leybold Optics� along with twoexcellent evening programs in which Robert Greenler

presented popular science lectures on “Beetles, Bub-bles and Butterflies: The Origins of Iridescence”and “Sunlight and Ice Crystals in the Skies of theAntarctica” to round out the program. From all ac-counts, most attendees were charmed by Banff andthe Canadian Rockies.

At the end of this paper, a collection of photographstaken by George Dobrowolski and Ric Shimshockduring the conference is presented. It is hoped thatthese photographs will serve as a nice memento forthe attendees.

Given the success of this meeting, we now lookforward to the Ninth OIC Topical Meeting, to be heldin 2004, which will have Ric P. Shimshock andNorbert Kaiser as the General and Program Chairs,respectively.

The conference chairpersons, Brian T. Sullivan andRic P. Shimshock, thank all the people who workedvery hard to make this conference a success. In par-ticular, we thank the OSA meetings departmentstaff, especially Kristin Mirabel and Mary Staley,for all their help organizing the logistical and ad-ministrative aspects of this conference; theOIC’2001 Technical Program Committee for theiradvice and help in organizing the technical side ofthis meeting; the Banff Centre for Conferences stafffor all of their excellent on-site technical and ad-ministrative support; the various companies whovery generously donated money, services, or bothfor this conference; Alfred Thelen, Alexander Tik-honravov, Markus Tilsch, and Ulf Brauneck for or-ganizing the thin-film design contest; and J. A.Dobrowolski and Steve Browning for their organi-zation of the very first OIC manufacturing problem.Finally, I thank Alexine Moore of the OSA for allher assistance in getting this feature issue out ontime.

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Ric P. Shimshock �OIC’2001 Program Chair�and Brian T. Sullivan �OIC’2001 General

Chair�

Robert Greenler

Charles K. Carniglia �JDSUniphase, USA� and Philip W.

Baumeister �Sholem Consultants,USA�

Angus and Anne Macleod �Thin FilmCenter, USA�

Ian J. Hodgkinson�University of Otago,

New Zealand�

Angela Duparre �Fraunhofer Institute,Germany� and Angela Piegari �Ente per la

Nuove Tecnologie, I’Energia Ambiente�ENEA� Italy�

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Jerzy Ciosek �Military University ofTechnology, Poland�, and Li Li, Tom

Cassidy, Pierre Verly, George Dobrowolski,and Penghui Ma �all of the National

Research Council of Canada�

Alexandre Gatto, Uwe Schallenberg �MSO�, NorbertKaiser, Jorg Steinert, Ulrike Schulz, Dieter Gabler,

Angela Duparre, Marcel Flemming, Sven Laux�JENOPTIK L.O.S., Germany�, Thomas Kuhlmann,

Roland Thielsch �Southwall Europe, Germany�,Gottfried Wurlitzer �JENOPTIK L.O.S., Germany�,and Helmut Bernitzki �JENOPTIK L.O.S., Germany�

�all of the Fraunhofer Institute unless otherwisestated�

Chen Yang Huang, Cheng-Chung Lee,Fang Chuan Ho, and Rung-Ywan Tsai�all of Industrial Technology Research

Institute �ITRI�, Taiwan�

Jean-Yves Natoli, Fabien LeMarchand, CaroleDeumie, Claude Amra, Philippe Torchio, andMireille Commandre, �all of Institut Fresnel,Ecole Nationale Superieure de Physique deMarseille �ENSPM�, Domaine Universitaire

de St Jerome, France�

Dale E. Morton �Denton Vacuum, USA�, and OlegZabeida, Stephane Larouche, Jolanta Klemberg-Sapieha, Ludvik Martinu, and Aram Amassian

�all of Ecole Polytechnique, Canada�

Douglas J. Smith �Vacuum Process Tech., USA�,and Amy Rigatti, James Howe, Nancy Bassett,

and James Oliver �all of the Laboratory for LaserEnergetics, University of Rochester, USA�

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Reuven Dahan �Red C Optical Networks�,K. Rabinovitch �Electrooptics Industries Ltd.,

Israel�, Hedva Zipin �RAFAEL, Israel�

Masatoshi Sato and TakayukiAkiyama �both of Nikon Corporation,

Japan�, and Yizhou Song andMasaya Narita �both of Shincron

Company Ltd.�

Eri Fukumoto �Optron Company, Ltd., Japan�,Shigetaro Ogura �Kobe Design University of

Japan�, and Shusei Tukada �Canon Inc., Japan�

Roger P. Netterfield, Svetlana Dligatch,and Philip Fairman �all of Common-wealth Scientific & Industrial Research

Organisation �CSIRO�, Australia�

Robert Hahn, Karen Hendrix, Charles K.Carniglia, and Richard Ian Seddon �all of JDS

Uniphase, USA�Randolph L. Hall, William H. Southwell, and

Michael L. Fulton �all of Rockwell Science Center, USA�.

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Oliver Treichel, Peter Pecher, Kai Kruse,Harro Hagedorn �all of Leybold Optics, Germany�

Robert W. Schaffer andJohn Walls �both of Evaporated

Coatings, Inc., USA�

Michel Poirier �NationalOptics Institute �INO�,

Canada� and Fred Goldstein�FTG Software Associates,

USA�

Alexander V. Tikhonravov �Moscow StateUniversity, Russia�, Alfred J. Thelen �JCM,

Germany�, Michael K. Trubetskov �Moscow StateUniversity, Russia�, and Gary deBell

�deBell Design, USA�

Carl G. Ribbing, Andreas Rung, and KristinaGelin �all of Uppsala University, Sweden�

Gregory I. Surdutovich andRitta Z. Vitlina �both ofUniversidade Federal doParana �UFPR�, Brazil�.

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