Reciprocity relations for interference coatings

Abstract

By analyzing the wave equations, the coincidence of the energy reflection and transmission coefficients for the s- and p-polarization waves is herein substantiated when they are incident on the interference coating from opposite directions. The coating can be characterized by an arbitrary spatial profile of the refractive index, the limiting condition is the absence of optical losses in it. Reciprocity relations are obtained for the energy reflection and transmission coefficients of natural light for a structure in the form of a plane-parallel dielectric plate with interference coatings on its opposite sides. It is shown that when a structure with an absorbing plate is illuminated in opposite directions, the energy reflection coefficients can differ, while the energy transmission coefficients always coincide. Reciprocity relations are applied to the calculation of broadband antireflective interference coatings consisting of alternate layers Nb2O5 and SiO2 deposited on a polycarbonate plate. As a result, their correctness is confirmed and it is shown that the optimized antireflection two-sided interference coating provides approximately a five times lower averaged energy reflection coefficient compared to the optimized one-sided coating.