M. Kuittinen et al., IMPROVEMENTS IN DIFFRACTION EFFICIENCY OF GRATINGS AND MICROLENSES WITH CONTINUOUS RELIEF STRUCTURES, Optics communications, 120(5-6), 1995, pp. 230-234
The fabrication of diffractive optical elements by laser-beam writing
or gray-tone technology leads to continuous-relief phase elements. The
diffraction efficiency of such elements is limited by the resolution
of the process. In this paper, we compare the continuous-relief elemen
ts with the multilevel elements fabricated by binary technology. In pa
rticular, we will show that for similar sampling resolution of the ide
al phase function, the continuous profiles have higher efficiencies th
an the multilevel profiles if the designed phase modulation is 4 pi an
d more.