Coating Fabry-Perot interferometer plates with broadband multilayer dielectric mirrors

A number of broadband multilayer dielectric coatings with reflectances of ~0.9 are described. Techniques used to produce highly uniform coatings for airspaced Fabry-Perot interferometers are given in detail, with emphasis on a method of optically monitoring the layer thicknesses. The method results in reasonable agreement over the whole spectrum between the design specifications and those of the finished coating as well as in good reproducibility.