Optical thin-film design software
A design tool that sets the number of layers, materials and thicknesses for a target spectrum.
Software for optics researchers and engineers
One thin layer makes the difference.
We design it and compute it.
Thin Film Lab builds software that designs multilayer thin-film structures and software that computes their reflection, transmission and absorption spectra. The engine runs live on this page and is checked against closed-form solutions.
Optical design · Optical simulation · Multilayer films · ENZ materials
- 3.0×10⁻¹⁵energy-conservation error (max |R+T−1|, 6 incidence angles · 2 polarizations · 201 wavelengths)
- 3.3×10⁻¹⁶difference between the closed-form solution and the transfer-matrix result (1, 3, 5, 10 layer pairs)
- 0external libraries: computed directly in the browser, nothing sent to a server
Two pieces of software
Thin-film work has two stages, design and verification, and each has its own tool.
Optical thin-film simulation software
A tool that computes reflection, transmission and absorption of a fixed film structure versus angle of incidence and polarization.
Design software
From a target spectrum to a layer stack
Set the wavelength band and reflection target, and get the layer structure and thicknesses that achieve it. The panel below is a demonstration with an ideal TiO₂/SiO₂ multilayer mirror.
Reflectance R(λ)–
Target-driven design
Change the center wavelength and layer count and watch the reflection band shift and widen immediately.
Per-layer thickness
Physical thicknesses are derived from the optical thickness of each high- and low-index material and listed in a table.
Grounded in research
The design workflow draws on research experience with multilayer films and ENZ materials.
Ask about design software
We take product, adoption and collaboration inquiries.
Simulation software
Once the structure is fixed, compute how light responds
Vary the angle of incidence and polarization and compute reflection and transmission spectra. The panel below is a demonstration that really runs the transfer-matrix method in your browser.
Reflectance R(λ)–
Angle and polarization dependence
See the reflection band shift to shorter wavelengths as the angle grows, and differ between polarizations.
Reflection, transmission, absorption
Compute and compare the reflection, transmission and absorption response of multilayer structures versus wavelength.
Pairs with the design software
Verify in simulation the structure obtained from design, as one workflow.
Ask about simulation software
We take product, adoption and collaboration inquiries.
Verification
The calculation engine is proven in numbers
The engine behind the demos above is checked against closed-form solutions and energy conservation. The table below was computed just now, in the browser that opened this page.
| Check | Reference | Result (max. error) |
|---|---|---|
| Energy conservation | R + T = 1 for lossless stacks (0–70° incidence · s/p · 400–800 nm) | 3.0×10⁻¹⁵PASS |
| Quarter-wave stack, closed form | R = ((1−Y)/(1+Y))², Y = (nH/nL)2N·nH²/ns (N = 1, 3, 5, 10; 550 nm, normal incidence) | 3.3×10⁻¹⁶PASS |
| Single-interface Fresnel | R = ((1−ns)/(1+ns))², glass n = 1.52 → 4.258% | 0PASS |
Measured at build time (2026-10-08)
This check confirms the accuracy of the calculation engine under the lossless idealization. It does not include fabrication tolerances or material dispersion of real devices.
Sister product · built on Claude
Academic English proofreading, built from measurement: no more DASI
Software from the same registered business that runs Thin Film Lab. It measures the style of 71 research fields from published papers, lets Claude edit manuscripts against that evidence, and delivers nothing until four script gates pass. Open source under the MIT license.
- 71field overlays
- 1,646CC BY 4.0 source papers
- 4script gates before delivery
- 120public benchmark cases
What Claude does
- Translate, then edit · non-English drafts are translated first, with a layer that blocks translationese carried over from the source language
- Field-aware editing · each section is edited with the matched field overlay (phrase bank, tense rules, notation list) in context
- Rule-cited journal · every changed and every deliberately kept span is logged with the rule that fired
- Gate-driven repair · when a script gate rejects the output, Claude repairs it from the concrete failure. Claude never grades its own work
Optics and photonics is the most densely measured field (121 papers), so the style baseline for thin-film manuscripts comes from this corpus.
BEFORE
Tumor tissues was collected from 42 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma [3]. The expression of Ki-67 was increased to 67.4 %, and it showed the correlation with poor prognosis (p = 0.003).
AFTER
Tumor tissues were collected from 42 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma [3]. Ki-67 expression increased to 67.4 % and correlated with poor prognosis (p = 0.003).
✓ 42, [3], 67.4 % and p = 0.003 stay byte-identical
Research
Software that starts from research
Thin Film Lab builds software on top of experience in physics and thin-film optics. It was built by a researcher, not a software developer, using Claude Code, and it keeps improving the same way.
Principal investigator
Tae Young KIM 김태영
Holds B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Inha University. Has published in SCI-indexed journals and researched thin-film optics and light-matter interaction.
General Strategy for Broadband Coherent Perfect Absorption and Multi-wavelength All-optical Switching Based on Epsilon-Near-Zero Multilayer Films
Tae Young Kim et al. · First author · DOI 10.1038/srep22941
Broadband Epsilon-Near-Zero Perfect Absorption in the Near-Infrared
Junho Yoon et al. · Co-author: Tae Young Kim · DOI 10.1038/srep12788
These papers are the principal investigator's earlier work at Inha University and were not published under the Thin Film Lab name.
Which software would you like to know about?
Product introductions, adoption, joint research: send us anything. Your mail app opens with the subject prefilled.
Write directly · tyk@thinfilmlab.org