Abstract

The combination of refractive with diffractive elements has already been demonstrated in 1966 [1] and has further been discussed by various authors (see for example [2]). In most cases, diffractive optics has been used to reduce chromatic aberrations of lens systems by making use of the opposite dispersion of diffractive and refractive optical elements. Recent developments in the fabrication of microoptical elements allow one to implement both refractive as well as diffractive microlenses by using lithographic techniques. For optical interconnection applications, the flexibility of lithographically fabricated diffractive optics is of interest for the implementation of beam permutation operations (see for example [3]).

© 1992 Optical Society of America