The optical constants suitable for designing and depositing 193nm AR coatings were calculated, and 193nm AR coatings were designed, produced and characterized on the basis of the calculated results. It was found that the extinction loss of the substrate material had such an important effect that when it was beyond a certain level the designed transmittance could not reach the ideal value. The designed and manufactured results of the single_surface AR coatings revealed that scattering loss began to play the key role when the absorbance loss decreased to a certain extent. High performance 193nm AR coatings with residual reflectance lower than 0.2% have been prepared by the resistant boat evaporation method.