Abstract

Thin film stress can play an important part in the fabrication of flat media on thin substrates, and can cause unwanted deformations and failure. The stress parameter has been shown to be adjustable by varying the deposition parameters during thermal evaporation or sputtering. For example, ion assisted reactive evaporation is a deposition technique which has been shown to be useful in controlling stress, in addition to other thin film parameters. The successful application of these techniques requires that the stress be monitored, in situ, during a coating run, or, by means of a piggy-backed stress monitor disk whose curvature is measured after the coating run.

© 1988 Optical Society of America