Concentrating on physical vapour deposition methods several examples of recently developed coating materials for optical applications were studied for film deposition with optimized coating technologies: mixed evaporation materials for ion assisted deposition with modern plasma ion sources, planar metal and oxide sputter targets for Direct Current (DC) and Mid-Frequency (MF) pulsed sputter deposition and planar and rotatable sputter targets of transparent conductive oxides (TCO) for large-area sputter deposition. Films from specially designed titania based mixed evaporation materials deposited with new plasma ion sources and possible operation with pure oxygen showed extended ranges of the ratio between refractive index and structural film stress, hence there is an increased potential for the reduction of the total coating stress in High-Low alternating stacks and for coating plastics. DC and MF-pulsed sputtering of niobium metal and suboxide targets for optical coatings yielded essential benefits of the suboxide targets in a range of practical coating conditions (for absent in-situ post-oxidation ability): higher refractive index and deposition rate, better reproducibility and easier process control. and the potential for co-deposition of several targets. Technological progress in the manufacture of rotatable indium tin oxide (ITO) targets with regard to higher wall-thickness and density was shown to be reflected in higher material stock and coater up-time, economical deposition rates and stable process behaviour. Both for the rotatable ITO targets and higher-dense aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) planar targets values of film transmittance and resistivity were in the range of the best values industrially achieved for films from the respective planar targets. The results for the rotatable ITO and planar AZO targets point to equally optimized process and film properties for the optimized rotatable AZO targets currently in testing. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.