A hydrofluoric acid (HF) bonding technique for multilayer thin films was studied to fabricate dielectric multilayer interference filters. The effects of pressure, HF concentration and annealing treatment on bonding strength were studied. Bonding strength of multilayer thin films of more than 5 MPa were obtained. In addition, a new type edge filter of 47 layers (47L) and a band-pass filter of 63 layers (63L), with their films sandwiched between glass substrates, were fabricated using this method. The measured transmittance spectra agreed well with the designed ones. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.