DIRECT MICRODEPOSITION OF DIFFRACTIVE STRUCTURES USING FEMTOSECOND EXCIMER-LASER

A study of the microdeposition of thin Cr diffractive structures using femtosecond ultraviolet laser radiation in a forward transfer mode is presented. A KrF excimer laser (lambda = 248 nm) having 500 fs pulse duration coupled to a high-power image projection micromachining works tation is used. The ablated material is transferred onto a receiving t arget glass substrate placed parallel to the source film. Experiments are carried out in a miniature vacuum cell under a low vacuum pressure 10(-1) Torr. The distance between the source and target surfaces is v ariable from near-contact to several hundreds of microns. High definit ion metal diffractive patterns are produced via a direct mask projecti on scheme, and first results on optical interconnect hologram reconstr uction are presented.