We have studied the optical effects in dielectric multilayer due to the interdiffusion formed during the deposition process. We suggest a numerical method to calculate the optical properties of periodical multilayer thin-films with gradient-index profiles. Using this method the spectral transmittance and reflectance were obtained for Fabry-Perot type filters, broad-band total reflectors and antireflection filters with interdiffusion layers. Interdiffusion reduced the spectral band width of high reflectance in total reflectors, and deteriorated the characteristics of multilayer AR-coatings leading to a large variation of reflectance if the number of the layers is large.