Abstract

The antireflection coating of diffractive optical elements (DOE) using IAD (ion assisted deposition) and conventional deposition process will be presented and compared in this report. Results showed that the coating surfaces were damaged and cracked using IAD process with 30 ev ion energy for multilayered and single layer design. However, the single layer convention cold deposition process on DOE was achieved successfully without damaging the surface or changing the transmission wavefront, which was found to be .134 λ before and after coating for the DOE standalone doublet component. On the multi-level phase DOE, the transmission wavefront was .078 λ and 0.094 λ before and after coating respectively. As observed the surface properties of DOE coating were highly related to deposition temperature, evaporation parameter, and coating tooling.

© 1995 Optical Society of America