SYNTHETIC INFRARED-SPECTRA

We have designed, microfabricated, and characterized a diffractive opt ical element that reproduces the infrared spectrum of HF from 3600 to 4300 cm(-1). The reflection-mode diffractive optic consists of 4096 Li nes, each 4.5 mu m wide, at 16 discrete depths relative to the substra te from 0 to 1.2 mu m and was fabricated upon a silicon wafer by aniso tropic reactive ion-beam etching in a four-mask-level process. We envi sage the use of diffractive optical elements of this type as tile basi s for a new class of miniaturized, remote chemical sensor systems base d on correlation spectroscopy. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.