Residual stress, which can be inevitably introduced during the optical films deposition process, must be controlled in many applications since the surface deformation is caused. The residual stress is traditionally controlled by adjusting the process parameters. However, the process parameters are determined by other more desired properties in many fields. In these cases, layer structure is the only variable to change the residual stress status of the components. Ta2O5/SiO2 is most commonly used material pair in visible/near infrared (VIS/NIR) region. In this letter, stress behaviors of Ta2O5 and SiO2 single layers deposited by ion-assisted deposition (IAD) are studied. Stress-thickness linear correlation curves of the two materials are obtained, which agree with the commonly reported linear results. Based on these features, a kind of antireflection (AR) coating acted as back side coating is designed to control the residual stress of components by the layer structure designing. A series of AR coatings at 1 319 nm are designed, according to residual stress status desired to introduce.