Image Quality Of Figured Multilayered Optics

The reflectivity and resolution of a multilayer structure is strongly affected by the roughness at the interfaces between two successive layers and by the amount that the constituent materials will diffuse into one another at the interfaces. Performance is also affected by the variations in individual layer thicknesses and by inhomogeneities in the materials. These deviations from the ideal multilayer will also affect the quality of the image from a figured multilayer optical element. The theory used to model the effects of non-ideal multilayers on the image quality of figured optics will be discussed. The relationship between image quality and multilayer structure quality will be illustrated with several examples.