Innovative Replication Technology for Diffactive Optical Elements

The principal objective of this program is to develop a novel method for economical replication of high quality diffractive optical elements (DOEs). We will use injection molding of a new copolymer to make accurate replicas of original DOEs which have 2 micron x 2 micron pixels with 64 phase levels. The original DOEs will be fabricated by Paul Maker at the BMDO-funded electron beam facility at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The proposed program will assist in advancing BMDO-developed DOE technology to the commercial environment. A set of test DOEs which implement optical interconnects will be designed with a proprietary software package. The original DOEs will be fabricated by continuous-write electron-beam lithography of a polymethyl methacrylate film on a quartz substrate. The physical properties of the new cyclic olefin copolymer make it suitable for replicating the small feature sizes of the original in a commercial injection molding facility. The optical and mechanical properties of the copolymer are superior to, or comparable with, the properties of other popular optical plastics. Optical testing will be performed on the original and replica DOEs. The reconstructed interconnection patterns will be examined for the occurrence of aliasing and a background of scattered light. The re-sults of the optical testing will be used to refine the replication process. Economical high quality DOEs will have numerous military andcommercial applica-tions. An immediate application is optical interconnects for optoelectronic switches and processors. Other applications include laser diode collimators, coupling of diodes to fibers, displays and imaging systems, bar code scanners, beam shapers, and head-mounted displays.