Laser writing systems and technologies for fabrication of binary and continuous relief diffractive optical elements

Abstract

Precision laser-writing systems operated in polar coordinates and direct writing technologies for fabrication of diffractive optical elements and computer generated holograms have been described. These systems can manufacture continuous-relief and binary microstructures with minimum feature sizes of less than 0.6 μm and laser beam positioning accuracy of 0.05 μm over 300-mm substrates. Hardware and software of the system permit to write on different types of photosensitive and thermal recording materials. Several examples of fabricated diffractive elements have been presented.