Silicon gratings with periods from 180 to 550 nm were fabricated with
a laser ablation technique in which the interference fringe from an in
tense and coherent ultraviolet laser at 266 nm directly melted silicon
surface. The scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy
pictures showed that the corrugations were in quite good quality with
the depth as large as 70 nm. The measurement of grating period depend
ence on temperature showed that rapid thermal annealing could release
the thermal strains, which were built during the melting and cooling p
rocess in laser ablation, and make the grating period variation more r
egular. Also, with an air gap between the sample and prism surfaces, t
he fabricated gratings had weaker thermal strains and more re alar tem
perature dependencies, All the measurement results of temperature depe
ndence were consistent with theoretical predictions. (C) 1997 American
Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(97)03943-0].