A mirror of known type comprises a stack of pairs of dielectric material layers
of alternating high and low refractive indices and a metal layer, preferably gold,
capping one end of the stack. For improvising the adherence of the metal layer
to the stack, the metal is directly contiguous with a layer of tin oxide. In different
mirror structures, the tin oxide can be an extra layer added between the end-most
pair of layers and the metal layer; or the tin oxide layer can comprise one layer
of only the end-most pair of dielectric layers in the stack; or all of the pairs
of dielectric layers in the stack can comprise a layer of tin oxide as one of the
pair layers.