Process Exporter

The Process Exporter plays your coating back one layer at a time (the spectrum after layer 1 is finished, after layer 2, and so on to the complete design), so you can see exactly what the in-chamber spectrophotometer will measure as the stack grows. It also exports per-step .res deposition files that deposition-monitoring software can load directly, one file per layer.

A timeline at the bottom scrubs through the deposition. The chart shows the bare-substrate baseline (dotted), the finished spectrum of the layer the timeline is on, and the live curve at the current scrub position (bold). Show all layers adds a finished curve for every layer, graded from blue for the first to red for the last. The spectrum is computed with the full system (front, substrate, and back, with an incoherent substrate), so it matches what the spectrometer would really see. The piece sits in the chamber, so it is read with air on both sides of it, whatever media the design is embedded in.

Settings

The toolbar holds what defines the run: the side, the part or witness chips, the state of the opposite surface, the quantity, and Show all layers. The Settings button at its right-hand end holds the monitor’s geometry, the spectral range and the export step. The left sidebar lists the deposition sequence and per-material rates, and on witness chips the chip setup above them.

Active side: which coating is being deposited, front or back.

Deposit on: the part, or witness chips. On the part every layer goes on one piece and the opposite surface can be bare or already coated. On witness chips each chip carries only the layers assigned to it, starts from bare chip glass, is grown like a front coating whichever side of the part the run deposits, and is read with its back face bare, so the opposite-surface choice does not apply. The chip plan, the chip glass and the witness ratio are the ones the Monitor Worksheet shows: a chip number typed in either window is what the other shows, and in chip mode the sequence table gains an editable Chip column, with Layers per chip, Chip glass and Witness ratio in the sidebar above it.

Opposite-surface state: on the part, whether the other surface is bare or already coated for the whole run.

Quantity: measure reflectance, transmittance, or absorptance.

Angle of incidence and polarization: the standard analysis controls (s, p, or average), in Settings.

Spectral range: the wavelength start, end, and step for the interactive chart, in Settings. A coarse step keeps scrubbing responsive. If the range reaches past the measured data of a material in the chamber, a layer, the substrate or the chip glass, the notice badge on the toolbar names it and offers to pull the range back onto the data.

Export step: the wavelength step written into the .res files. It does not affect the chart. The default is 0.5 nm; set it to match your spectrophotometer’s grid, which for a fixed-array instrument is often an odd number such as 0.4375 nm. Type the decimal with either a dot or a comma. It is in Settings, under the spectral range.

Show all layers: draw the finished curve for every layer. With it off, which is the default, the chart draws the baseline, the layer the timeline is on, and the live curve, and nothing else. Sixty finished curves over one plot is a grey haze with the answer somewhere inside it. Turn it on to compare the whole run at once; the layer the timeline is on stays at full strength and the rest go grey, because a turning point only means something against the curves before it. The hover readout stays on those same three curves whatever is drawn, so select a layer when you want to read a value off it.

Deposition rates: an optional per-material rate (nm/s) in the sidebar. Rates only shape the time axis of the timeline; they do not change the spectrum. The sequence table shows each layer’s thickness and time, with the current layer marked by a bar down its left edge. Click a layer to move the timeline to it, with that layer fully deposited; the up and down arrow keys then walk the stack from there. Click a held layer again to release it, and pressing Play or moving the timeline releases it too. Your setup choices and rates are remembered between sessions.

Save: pick an output folder; one .res file is written per completed deposition step (01.res, 02.res, …). Each file carries a header and a per-layer table of physical and optical thickness; layers are numbered in deposition order, with layer 1 being the first deposited (the one touching the substrate). On witness chips each chip gets a folder of its own, chip-1, chip-2 and so on, with that chip’s files numbered from 01 and the layer table listing the layers on the chip at the thickness the witness receives; the comment line of each file names the design layer it belongs to. A long run shows its progress under the toolbar while the files are being built.

How to read it

Play or scrub the timeline to watch the spectrum evolve toward the final design. The step curves let you see at a glance how each layer moves the spectrum, which is useful for spotting a layer whose contribution is small (and therefore hard to monitor) or one that swings the spectrum sharply. The .res files are the deliverable for your deposition controller: they describe the target spectrum at the end of every layer so the monitor can compare the live measurement against the intended one. The live spectrum uses the design’s nominal materials with no noise; for a realistic as-built prediction use the Broadband or Mono monitoring simulators instead.

References

• H. A. Macleod, Thin-Film Optical Filters, 5th ed., §2.6.4 (incoherent substrate).