Since barrier packaging materials go through low barriers of polyethylene (PE) to middle barriers of polyester (PET) and even to high barriers of Polyvinyl Dichloride (PVDC), Ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) and Aluminum foil, the rise of silicon oxide film represents the novel trend in the barrier packaging area due to super-barrier, transparent, micro-wave able, printing adapt- ability and high addition values, however, how to effectively test the barrier properties of silicon oxide film will become key point to realize the industrial application of its lamination packaging materials. Given that barrier characteristics of barrier materials is relate with all kinds of factors, based on the previous study, we compare different samples manufactured by different preparation methods and found that Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is an effective and direct mea- surement tool to characterize the barrier properties. The interface variations of coating samples induced by electron beam evaporation, magnetron sputtering, ion assisted electron beam evaporation and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition were compared in this study, and it could be concluded that surface roughness and internal stress mainly contribute to coating quality and barrier properties, which could be used to determine the level of barrier performance.