Consolidated series for efficient calculation of the reflection and transmission in rough multilayers

Fresnel reflectance and transmittance coefficients of a thin film system consisting of an arbitrary number of layers are expressed explicitly in the form of a power series of Fresnel coefficients for individual boundaries and phase terms for the individual films. The series is based on the evaluation of all possible paths light can pass through the system. However, the series is written as consolidated, i. e. all paths corresponding to the same powers are represented using a single term in the series, with multiplicity which is a simple product of binomial coefficients. This result is used to express the normal reflectance of a thin film system with arbitrarily correlated randomly rough boundaries and it is shown that such approach can be computationally efficient in practice.