2025 OIC Manufacturing 'Road Runner' Challenge

Published

February 10, 2026

Author(s)

Catherine Cooksey, Michael Jacobson, Daniel Poitras, Luke Sandilands, Amy Rigatti, John Gilmore

Abstract

Measurements are presented of the fabricated optical filters submitted to the Manufacturing Challenge organized in conjunction with Optica's Topical Meeting on Optical Interference Coatings, held in Tucson in May 2025. For this Ninth edition of the challenge, participants were asked to design and fabricate, on a provided substrate, a filter with transmittance and front- and back-reflectance spectra (with light incident from the front, and from the back, respectively) as close as possible to target values specified in the 400nm to 1100nm spectral region. Participants had the liberty to use the coating materials, the design and the deposition method of their choice. The challenge problem was selected such that to achieve a performance close to the targets, at least one absorbing layer had to be included in the submitted filter. Six teams from three different countries participated to the challenge and submitted a total of 10 samples, all both-side coated, with total thicknesses ranging from 3589nm to 8088nm, and between 31 and 135 layers. The submitted filters were measured at four independent laboratories; the resulting Merit Function values obtained when comparing the measured spectra to the targets were used to rank the filters, and declare a winner. In the analysis of the results, observations will be made about design, measurement and fabrication of the coatings.

Citation

Applied Optics

Volume

65

Issue

5

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.577764

Local Download

Citation

Cooksey, C. , Jacobson, M. , Poitras, D. , Sandilands, L. , Rigatti, A. and Gilmore, J. (2026), 2025 OIC Manufacturing 'Road Runner' Challenge, Applied Optics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.577764, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=960555 (Accessed February 14, 2026)