Abstract

Diffractive microlens arrays with continuous relief are designed, fabricated, and characterized by using Fermat’s principle to create an array of spots on the photoresist-coated surface of a substrate for parallel laser direct writing. Experimental results indicate that a diffraction efficiency of 71.4% and a spot size of $1.97\mathrm{\mu m}$ (FWHM) can be achieved at normal incidence and a writing laser wavelength of $441.6\mathrm{nm}$ with an array of $F/4$ fabricated on fused silica, and the developed array can be used to improve the utilization ratio of writing laser energy.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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