An ultrabroad band omni-directional antireflective coating was fabricated using both reactive magnetron sputtering and glancing angled electron beam evaporation methods. Gradient index amorphous Si, SiN
x
, and SiO
x
N
y
thin films were deposited by tuning the flow rate of the reactive gases, while the gradient index distribution of the nanoporous SiO2 stacks was obtained by rotating the angle of the substrate. A low average reflectivity of less than 2% at normal incidence in the wavelength range 280 to 3300 nm was achieved, and the average reflectivity over the angle range 15 to 89° was 3.7% for the wavelength between 300 and 1700 nm.