Replication of diffractive optics

Abstract

In recent years surface-relief Diffractive Optical Elements (DOEs), a specialized class of diffractive optical elements, have revolutionized design of optical systems and instruments. Surface-relief diffractive optical components improve performance of the existing optical systems and increase systems compactness and reliability. Surface-relief DOEs can be fabricated as multilevel binary optical elements, or as continuous surface-relief optical elements. A surface-relief DOE is being designed such that incident light interacts with the topography of the surface-relief microstructure including the size and shape characteristics of surface profile features such as indentations and projections as well as their dimensional relationship, to perform a desired optical function. Binary optical elements are being made by the same microlithographic and ion etching techniques used to produce VLSI circuits. Computer-generated continuous surface-relief DOE is recorded by direct laser-beam or e-beam writing in photoresist. Continuous surface-relief DOE can be also recorded in photoresist by interferometric (holographic) technique. After development recorded in photoresist surface-relief microstructures are being ion-beam etched into quartz or other inorganic optical substrates.