Abstract

For all their power and promise, diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are generally so difficult to fabricate and so costly to prototype that their full commercial potential has yet to be realized. Although microfabrication techniques that stem from VLSI semiconductor processes are well-developed, they usually require mass production to be economically feasible.¹ Even when unit cost is not a primary consideration, the time period from design to realization of even the simplest custom DOEs can frequently run to weeks or even months. We show that we are able to produce practical diffractive elements in minutes to hours. A user has the ability to design, fabricate, gauge, and refine the diffractive structure at a single workstation. We have constructed a wide spectrum of DOEs, including spherical lenses, aspheres, toroids, as well as cylindrical and conical lenses—each in a fraction of the time required using more conventional microfabrication techniques.

© 1996 Optical Society of America