Fabrication of a new type of transmission grating with holography interferometry and wet anisotropic etching

Abstract

As a new type of grating, the freestanding blazed transmission grating combines the advantages of traditional transmission gratings (low mass, relaxed alignment and flatness figure insensitivity) with those of reflection gratings (high broadband diffraction efficiency, high spectral resolution). A freestanding blazed transmission grating with period of 1μm was successfully fabricated by holographic lithography and anisotropic wet etching of silicon. The duty cycle is about 0.13. The aspect ratio of a single grating bar is about 77. The thickness is 10μm and the open area fraction is about 58.8%. The size of a single die is 15mm×15mm divided into four 5mm ×5mm windows. The diffraction efficiency of the grating was measured at the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in the wavelength region of 5-50nm. The results show a strong blazing effect in the direction of specular reflection from mirror-like grating sidewalls, as expected.