text: fig1 illustrates a plurality of spherical lenses 10 as positioned upon a carrier member 12 suitably formed to be used in association with the inventive method . it is to be understood that the coating process to be described hereinbelow is suitable for use with any desired article of manufacture and the following discussion directed to spherical members is for exemplary purposes only . referring back to fig1 member 12 contains a plurality of &# 34 ; horizontal &# 34 ; trenches 14 and a plurality of &# 34 ; vertical &# 34 ; trenches 16 formed in top surface 18 of member 12 . the pluralities of trenches intersect to form the grid - like structure as shown in fig1 . the dimensions and spacing of trenches 14 , 16 are such that lenses 10 will rest therebetween with only four points of contact , denoted a , b , c and d in fig1 . as will be discussed hereinafter in association with fig2 and 3 , trenches 14 , 16 may be formed as a bi - level structure to improve the stability of spheres 10 in carrier 12 . after spherical lenses 10 are loaded on carrier 12 , carrier 12 is inserted in a reactor chamber ( not shown ) to begin the chemical vapor deposition of the coating material . once the coating has been deposited to the desired thickness ( as determined by processing parameters such as time and ambient temperature for cvd process , or the number of cycles for mbe or ale processes ), the carder is removed from the chamber . coated lenses 10 may then be removed from carrier 12 , using a &# 34 ; pick and place &# 34 ; tool , for example . although points of contact a , b , c and d will not be coated , such has not been found to affect the optical properties of the coated lens , perhaps due to the relatively small contact point size ( e . g .,& lt ;& lt ; 1 μm for a 300 μm sphere ). it is to be noted that spheres of various dimensions may be simultaneously contacted and , further , several carriers may be processed simultaneously to further increase throughput . approximately 1000 sapphire spheres , each approximately 300 μm in diameter , were loaded onto a carrier ( approximately one inch square ) as depicted in fig1 . the loaded carder was transferred into a reactor chamber and a dadbs sio 2 layer was deposited . in practice , one reactor chamber may easily handle 10 to 50 carriers during each run . the chamber was maintained at a temperature of approximately 500 ° c . and the deposition was performed for approximately 26 . 5 minutes . the time and temperature parameters were calculated to yield an ar coating layer ( for λ = 1 . 3 μm ) approximately 2250å thick . ellipsometry measurements on coated witness slides yielded an actual thickness of approximately 2222å . optical transmission and reflection measurements on the spheres gave results consistent with theory ( i . e ., transmissivity & gt ; 98 % and reflectivity & lt ; 1 %). under optical microscope examination , no contact points were visible ( with magnification greater than 400x ). measurements of several thousand spheres yielded spheres with transmissivity greater than 98 %, regardless of orientation . it has been found , through experimentation , that improved stability of spheres on the trench structure of carrier 12 may result from the utilization of sets of bi - level trenches , as illustrated in particular in fig2 and 3 . in the top view of fig2 an exemplary sphere 10 i , j is illustrated as resting in the intersection of horizontal trench 14 i and vertical trench 16 j . each trench , in actuality , comprises a lower trench of width w 1 and an upper trench of width w 2 , where w 1 is less than w 2 . the widths are chosen such that a sphere of diameter d rest upon four points of contact a , b , c and d ( a and b being the only visible points of contact in fig3 ). the difference in width being chosen such that only slight motion of the spheres ( indicated by the arrows in fig2 ) will be tolerated before the spheres contact points a &# 39 ;, b &# 39 ;, c &# 39 ; or d &# 39 ; associated with the upper trenches . as seen by the view in fig3 lower horizontal trench 14 &# 39 ; i is formed to comprise a depth d 1 below top surface 18 of carrier 12 . this depth is chosen such that sufficient flow of material through the trench during the vapor deposition coating process is maintained . depth d 2 for upper trench 14 &# 39 ;&# 39 ; i may be chosen such that approximately half of sphere 10 i , j remains above surface 18 of carrier 12 . it is to be noted that the above - described technique is equally applicable to forming a reflective coating on an article of manufacture , where such a reflective coating may be useful for some applications . any suitable coating material , for example a metal such as aluminum or tungsten deposited from an organo - metallic precursor , may be used to form a reflective coating utilizing the vapor deposition method of the present invention . further , as mentioned above , any suitable vapor deposition process , well - known to those skilled in the art , may be used in practicing the present invention including , but not limited to , chemical vapor deposition ( cvd ), molecular beam epitaxy ( mbe ) or atomic layer epitaxy ( ale ).