Serial bideposition of anisotropic thin films with enhanced linear birefringence

We describe a serial bideposition technique in which a tilted substrate is rotated stepwise by half a turn about a normal axis during the evaporation of a metal oxide from a single electron-beam source. Coatings formed by the new method develop a columnar nanostructure that is perpendicular to the substrate and has greatest width or bunching perpendicular to the common deposition plane. With appropriate choice of deposition parameters, the method produces biaxial films with large birefringence, principal axes aligned parallel and perpendicular to the substrate, and improved uniformity. Measured phase retardances for light incident normally on the films are double the corresponding values for tilted-columnar films. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America.