A Brief History of the OIC Conference

The first Topical Meeting on Optical Interference Coatings was held more than 40 years ago in response to the growing need for researchers working in the field to have a more focused platform to communicate and to present their work. Between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, significant progress had been made in many areas of optical coatings: theory, computer-aided design, optical monitoring, deposition techniques, physical and optical characterization techniques. With these advances, interference coatings became an essential part of many optical systems and the thin film coating industry began to form across North America, Europe and elsewhere. However, while thin film activities were a strong component in Optica annual meetings, there was no conference dedicated to optical interference coatings.
 
In 1976, Philip Baumeister took the initiative and organized the very first topical meeting on optical interference coatings in Pacific Grove, California, USA. The driving principle was to have a conference where people working in thin film research and the optical coating industry could come together and share their most important findings every four years (later changed to three years). To date, thirteen Optica OIC — Optical Interference Coatings Conferences have been held. Optica OIC has become one of the longest running topical meeting series of Optica with support from other societies. Over the years, many pioneers and leading experts from countries all over the world in the optical coating field have become General or Program Chairs of Optica OIC (see the table below) or members of the program or advisory committees. Their contribution has helped greatly in promoting this international conference and in ensuring its continuity and growing success.

Forty-five people attended the first OIC conference and presented 31 papers during the three-day meeting.  Since then, Optica OIC has grown considerably and it now regularly attracts over 300 people from all over the world for five days of technical sessions, one day of short courses, a technical exhibit and three optical coating related contests in design, manufacturing and measurement.  With over 180 contributed and invited papers, the conference serves as a focal point for global technical interchange in the field of optical interference coatings. All aspects of optical coatings are covered including design, deposition technologies, process control, measurement, testing, characterization and, most importantly, the broad and ever-growing range of applications for optical coatings covering wavelengths from the soft X-ray to the far infrared spectral regions.  To ensure that the advances in optical coatings highlighted during the Optica OIC are widely disseminated, a feature issue of the Applied Optics journal is dedicated to Optica OIC.
 
We look forward to the 2025 Optica OIC — Optical Interference Coatings Conference to be held at the El Conquistador Tucson, A Hilton Resort in Tuscan, Arizona, USA, and continuing the tradition of bringing the optical field community together from all over the world to share the latest results and advances in the field of optical coatings.