Amorphous silicon nitride: a suitable alloy for optical multilayer structures

: a-Si(1-x)N(x):H thin films grown by PECVD in a wide compositional range were characterized by spectroscopic ellipsometry and Mach-Zehnder interferometry. Taking advantage from their optical properties, the alloys were fruitfully applied for stratified structures such as distributed Bragg reflectors, conventional and double resonance optical microcavities.