Why do camera lenses have a purple sheen, and soap bubbles swirl with color? A film just a fraction of a wavelength thick makes light interfere with itself.
Thin-Film / AR CoatingLive
interference kills reflections
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Coat glass with a film a quarter-wavelength thick and its two reflections cancel by destructive interference — an anti-reflection coating. It works best at one wavelength (the reflectance dips to near zero there), giving camera lenses and glasses their faint purple sheen. The same physics makes soap bubbles and oil slicks shimmer with color.
Reading this result: At 100 nm the film is almost exactly quarter-wave for 550 nm, so green-light reflection is nearly cancelled — an ideal AR coating.
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How it works
When light reflects off the two surfaces of a thin film, the two waves interfere. A quarter-wavelength-thick film makes them cancel, forming an anti-reflection coating that all but eliminates reflection at one wavelength — giving lenses their faint tint. Varying film thickness produces the shifting colors of soap bubbles and oil on water.
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