Fabrication of high-efficiency convex blazed gratings by swing ion beam etching

Abstract

We use the swing ion-beam etching method to fabricate short wave infrared convex blazed gratings. This method solves the consistency problem of blaze angles by swing etching through the meridian direction of the gratings. A geometric model is built to analyze the influence of swinging speed and beam slit width on groove evolution. Convex gratings with a 45.5 gr/mm groove density, 67 mm aperture, 156.88 mm radius of curvature and 2.2 blaze angle have been fabricated and measured. Experimental results validate that high-efficiency convex gratings of small blaze angle and high groove consistency can be produced by swing etching to satisfy the requirements for high spectral resolution and miniaturization of imaging spectrometers.