A multiparameter fitting with additional parameters for film inhomogeneity based on transmission results is used to get film inhomogeneity information and to compare different models for film structure. For a number of evaporated materials similar results from transmission fitting have been obtained by using a model consisting of two sublayers with a constant difference in refractive indices between them, either with a thin sublayer in the contact with a substrate or with air. As additional information, we obtained the film physical thickness result from step profile measurements for an oxygen-doped Y2O3 film on a fused silica and we compared it with the fit results for this coating. The result closest to the profilometry one has been achieved for a model with a thinner sublayer in contact with the substrate. The differences are great enough to assert that Y2O3 films on a fused silica possess a higher refractive index in the first stages of growth and then, after some transition, the main material with smaller refractive index grows on it. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.