New materials for optical thin films.

New materials for optical thin films are presented. Zirconium oxide, titanium oxide, cerie oxide, and hafnium oxide in the form of black tablets or cones of various sizes for the electron beam evaporation technique were developed. These materials are oxygen depleted and give an uniform melt during the evaporation to give reproducible evaporation characteristics. A new mixture consisting of ZrO(2) and ZrTiO(4) for the production of high index layers is described. The evaporation conditions of the substance and the properties of thin layers of the mixture are given. The refractive index is 2.15 at 500 nm. The transmittance range is 0.4-7 microm. The layers are optically homogeneous. The application of layers of this mixture in a three-layer antireflection coating is described.