Desktop Manufacturing for Computer Generated Diffractive Optical Elements

Diffractive optics has emerged as a valuable technology for solving design problems in imaging and optical beam control. Light weight and compact size elements offer particularly important benefits for many commercial and government applications. However, at present the fabrication of elements with both high resolution and high diffraction efficiency is a difficult, expensive process reuqiring skilled labor and costly capital equipment. Foster-Miller proposes to demonstrate in Phase I of this program, a major advance in the manufacturing of diffractive elements by direct laser writing of high efficiency multilevel elements in a sub-micron resolution holographic film. Inexpensive, high quality elements cna then be subsequently mass produced by a replication process that has already been demonstrated in commercial use. In addition, the unique structure of this holographic film allows the creation of liquid crystal composites that can be electrically controlled, allowing the development for the first time of tunable diffractive optical elements. This novel films has been jointly demosntrated in a number of advanced optical applications, including beam division, switching, lensing and optical filtering, by Foster-Miller and Polaroid Corp., and has widespread commercial potential for diffractive optics. Anticipated Benefits: Diffractive optical elements have vast potential commerical applications in optical imaging, laser beam control and shaping, and optical interconnects for electronic processors, optical memories and optical processing, if the manufacturing costs can be lowered significantly. The small size and weight are important for aricraft and consumer items such as cameras. Compact tunable elements will be used in planar optics and for accessing 2D and 3D optical storage. The growing nation-wide high speed fiber communications network will increase demand for active connection devices based on diffractive elements.